#I took a history in spring a history in fall and now a political science class… IM TIRED OF FHIS INFORMATION

[crushedsweets]

I forgot how hard it is to do homework when I could be drawing toby

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Republicans clueless as to why they don't have the youth vote . . .

climate protection reproductive health student debt gun safety affordable healthcare LGBTQ+ rights interracial marriage contraception voting rights marijuana money in politics police standards workers’ rights teaching accurate history, science and biology strong public schools support of teachers immigration issues

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The Summer of Climate Collapse

[That's Another Fine Mess :: TCinLA]

Fifty years ago, I decided that a Master of Public Administration degree would be useful in my expected career in government. In 1975, I obtained on of the first MPA degrees in the field of “Environmental Management.”

One of the books we read was “The Limits to Growth,” published by the Club of Rome, which detailed current enviornmental problems and forecast where they would be in 30 years of no action was taken, some action was taken, or effective action was taken. I rediscovered that book in a box in my garage 25 years ago and re-read it with the benefit of hindsight, since their 30 year period had just ended. In every case, no action had been taken, and in every case the current situation had been accurately forecast by the contributors to the book.

In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr.'s prescient "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis" was published in "Science" magazine. His thesis was:

"In Antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men, but were very unlike men; centaurs, fauns, and mermaids show their ambivalence. Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects."

Perhaps it’s fitting that during this summer of climate collapse - and if you think it’s something other than that, consider that June was Earth’s hottest month on record since the Permian Collapse - the event that brought on the Age of Dinosaurs after killing off 70% ofr species in the ocean and 80% of those on land - until the end of this month when the record will be broken by July, a record that will likely last another 31 days to the end of August. The atmosphere is warmer now than it’s been in 125,000 years, when our species was a few thousand individuals living a precarious existence on the edge of extinction in what is now South Africa .

That we are all transfixed not by this news but rather by the prospect of the United States falling to the machinations of a tenth-rate failed circus clown demonstrates the problem.

The initial success of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” suggests Hollywood is finally ready to portray the American development and use of atomic weapons during World War II as something other than an absolute necessity. Unlike past movies, Nolan’s film points out that J. Robert Oppenheimer and many of his contemporaries knew they were ushering in an era where eradicating civilization had never been so easy

The parallels to climate change may not be obvious to people who don’t sit around pondering the end of the world, but I see them. Both climate change and ever-looming nuclear catastrophe are willful human creations driven by “progress” - one by scientific theory and research turbocharged by limitless wartime government resources, the other by oil-fueled industrialization. Both rationalized as necessary evils; climate change as a consequence of endless convenience for the human species, and nukes as guarantor of fragile world peace via “mutual assured destruction.”

It only took nearly 80 years to get to the point that National Mythology can be questioned in a commercially-successful film In all the time scientists have tried to focus our attention on climate change, they’ve had nothing as visually arresting as a single bomb instantly wiping out a city.

That has changed this summer.

We now have a global heat wave few could have envisioned even ten years ago, while the fossil fuel companies driving this destruction are coming off a year of record profits.

I wonder how this will be portrayed on screen 80 years from now.

The World Meteorological Organization expects temperatures in North America, Asia, North Africa and the Mediterranean to be above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) "for a prolonged number of days this summer." It also expects more frequent heatwaves, spread across the seasons.

The ocean around Florida hit a record temperature of 101 degrees this week. Warm water like that will produce a hurricane that could wipe Miami off the map, the equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

While the Southwest swelters under a heat dome, Vermont saw its second 100-year rainstorm in roughly a decade. Early July brought the hottest day globally since records began, a milestone surpassed the following day. Yesterday there was flooding across the northeast from Wisconsin to Maine.

As these temperature and weather records fall, Earth may be nearing so-called tipping points. A “tipping point” is where incremental steps along the same trajectory could push Earth’s systems into abrupt or irreversible change, leading to transformations that cannot be stopped even if emissions were suddenly halted.

If these tipping points are passed, some effects such as permafrost thawing or the world’s coral reefs dying - both are already happening in Siberia and the Central Pacific - will happen more quickly than expected. We don’t really know when or how fast things will fall apart.

Some natural systems, if upended, could herald a restructuring of the world. Take the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica: It’s about the size of Florida, with a protruding ice shelf impeding the glacier’s flow into the ocean. Although the overall melt is slower than originally predicted, warm water is eating away at it from below, causing deep cracks. At a certain point, that melt may progress to become self-sustaining, which would guarantee the glacier’s eventual collapse. That will affect how much sea levels will rise; 80% of humans live near the ocean.

When melt from Greenland’s glaciers enters the ocean, it alters an important system of currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The AMOC is a conveyor belt, drawing warm water from the tropics north. The water’s salinity increases as it evaporates, which, among other factors, makes it sink and return south along the ocean floor. As more glacial fresh water enters the system, that conveyor belt will weaken. Right now it’s the weakest it’s been in more than 1,000 years.

The Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system has become slower and less resilient, according to a new analysis of 150 years of temperature data — raising the possibility that this crucial element of the climate system could collapse within the next few decades.

Consider that: Paris and London are at the same latitude as Hudson’s Bay, yet Europe has the climate it does because of the AMOC - we commonly call it the Gulf Stream - which brings warm water in contact with cold air, resulting in the clouds and rain that provide for all living things there. If that collapses, life in Europe could soon resemble that of northern Canada. Right now, Europe can grow enough food to feed its 740+ million people; if the AMOC was to die, the continent could be plunged into famine in a matter of years.

The study published this last Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that continued warming will push the AMOC over its “tipping point” around 2050-2080. The shift would be as abrupt and irreversible as turning off a light switch, and it could lead to dramatic changes in weather on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to a drop in temperatures in northern Europe and elevated warming in the tropics, as well as stronger storms on the east coast of North America.

If the temperature of the sea surface changes, precipitation over the Amazon might too, contributing to deforestation, which in turn is linked to snowfall on the Tibetan plateau.

A new study published in Nature Communications last week titled “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” reports global warming forced by all the CO2 and methane in our atmosphere - if we action is not taken immediately - could shut down the AMOC as early as 2025 and almost certainly before 2095.

We may not even realize when we start passing points of no return—or if we already have.

James Hansen, one of the early voices on climate and the founder of 350.org, says measures to mitigate the crisis may ironically now contribute to it. A working paper he published this spring suggests that reduction in sulfate aerosol particles—the air pollution associated with burning coal and the global shipping industry—has contributed to warmer temperatures because these particles cause water droplets to multiply, brightening clouds and reflecting solar heat away from the planet’s surface. Hansen predicts that environmentally minded policies to reduce these pollutants will likely cause temperatures to rise 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

This adds to a growing body of alarming climate science, like the one published last year in the Journal of Climate titled “Sixfold Increase in Historical Northern Hemisphere Concurrent Large Heatwaves Driven by Warming and Changing Atmospheric Circulations,” which indicates we’re much farther down the path of dangerous climate change than even most scientists realized.

That study essentially predicted this year’s shocking Northern Hemisphere heat waves. The lead researcher’s first name is Cassandra.

Perhaps most alarming was a paper published eleven months ago in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled “Evidence for Massive Methane Hydrate Destabilization During the Penultimate Interglacial Warming.”

It brings up the topic of the “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis,”which is the absolute worst case scenario for humanity’s future.

Across the planet there are an estimated 1.4 trillion tons of methane gas frozen into a snowcone-like slurry called clathrates or methane hydrates laying on the sea floor off the various continents. When they suddenly melt, that’s the “firing of the gun.” An explosion - in the context of geologic time - of atmospheric gas that’s over 70 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. The Clathrate Gun.

The PNAS paper mentioned above concludes that 126,000 years ago there was an event that caused a small amount of these clathrates to warm enough to turn to gas and bubble up out of the seas. The resulting spike in methane gas led to a major warming event worldwide:

“Our results identify an exceptionally large warming of the equatorial Atlantic intermediate waters and strong evidence of methane release and oxidation almost certainly due to massive methane hydrate destabilization during the early part of the penultimate warm episode (126,000 to 125,000 y ago). This major warming was caused by … a brief episode of meltwater-induced weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and amplified by a warm mean climate.”

The researchers warn we may be looking at a similar event in our time:

“This week, sea surface temperatures along the coasts of Southern Spain and North Africa were 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) higher than they would normally be at this time of year, with some spots 5C (9F) above the long-term average.”

This has never happened before while humans have existed.

The least likely but most dangerous outcome scenario is that the warming ocean might begin a massive melting of those methane hydrate slurries into gas, producing a “burp” of that greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, further adding to global warming, which would then melt even more of the clathrates.

At the end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, this runaway process led to such a violent warming of the planet that it killed over 90 percent of all life in the oceans and 70 percent of all life on land, paving the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, as cold-blooded lizards were among the few survivors. That period is referred to as the Permian Mass Extinction, or, simply, “The Great Dying.” It was the most destructive mass extinction event in Earth’s history.

As the scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted:

“The key findings of our study add to a growing body of observational findings strongly supporting the ‘clathrate gun hypothesis.’ … Importantly, the interval we have studied is marked by a mean climate state comparable to future projections of transient global climate warming of 1.3 °C to 3.0 °C.”

We just this year passed 1.3 degrees Celsius of planetary warming: we are now in the territory of the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis if these researchers are right

The last time our planet saw CO2 levels at their current 422 parts-per-million, sea levels were 60 feet higher and forests grew in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, we’re pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere right now than at any time in human history.

[dankusner]

The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF

On a spring day in Rome, 1957—the season of Pope Pius XII’s Ash Wednesday Mass, wisteria blooming by the Spanish Steps—30-year-old Bruno Lunenfeld gave one hell of a presentation.

What he said had the potential to shape the course of history in ways even the Vatican couldn’t foresee.

Inside an imposing L-shaped building that stretched down Via Casilina and then along Via L’Aquila, in a wood-paneled library distinguished by rows of leather-bound books and cream floor tiles spangled with stars, the dozen or so board members of a pharmaceutical company listened as Lunenfeld described his findings.

For four years he had been developing a therapy that would induce ovulation in women struggling with infertility.

What he needed now was the support of the Istituto Farmacologico Serono, whose own staff scientist, Piero Donini, had been working on a similar endeavor, and who had facilitated Lunenfeld’s trip from Israel to Rome.

The men listened politely, but at the end of the presentation they told him, with regret, that they couldn’t help.

They believed certain hurdles to be insurmountable.

It seemed unlikely, for instance, that Serono would be able to procure the vast quantities of one specific essential substance without which the drug couldn’t be made.

Lunenfeld left the library.

Nearly 70 years later, looking back, he won’t be able to remember whether or not he was crying.

What he does recall is that a member of the board by the name of Don Giulio Pacelli—pictures will show the Italian prince to have had the strong features and thick dark hair, receding sharply at the temples, of a Fellini heartthrob—approached him in his despair.

Lunenfeld wasn’t Italian or Catholic.

He didn’t realize the currency of Pacelli’s name in a city like Rome and certainly couldn’t have understood his connection to the pope.

Still, the prince had something else to offer, equally potent and instantly recognizable: belief.

“I have an idea,” he said to Lunenfeld. “Let’s talk.”

30,000 LITERS

“I will tell you exactly the number of nuns we needed for the initial phase,” Lunenfeld says to me.

The 96-year-old endocrinologist is calling from his home on the Florida coast, in Delray Beach, just a short drive from Boca Raton.

He can’t immediately find the figure in his files but, he assures me, he knows he has it somewhere.

I tell him I recall reading that it was 300 nuns.

“Could be, could be,” he says patiently.

Then he locates the slide he was looking for.

“No, I think we only had a hundred nuns.”

Later, that number would expand, but over the first year, he says, “we had a hundred nuns recruited, which gave us 30,000 liters, and the 30,000 liters gave us a hundred milligrams of the substance which we needed. And this was enough to make 9,000 vials of 75 units, sufficient for 450 ovulation induction cycles.”

What Lunenfeld is explaining is that it took 100 postmenopausal nuns one year to produce 30,000 liters of piss.

All that urine, collected and processed by Serono, eventually helped create the drug Pergonal, which aided in the first successful IVF pregnancy in the United States, as well as countless pregnancies, in vitro and otherwise, worldwide.

And in certain ways still does.

Serono phased out Pergonal in 2004.

Later that year, the nearly identical brand-name competitor, Menopur, gained approval for use in the US and remains a leading IVF drug today.

In 2022 Menopur turned $802 million in global sales for Swiss-owned Ferring Pharmaceuticals.

That fall, “changes made in the manufacturing process” of Menopur’s ingredients caused a yearlong global shortage, sending patients scrambling to internet pharmacies and online message boards, desperately searching for vials of the drug.

For now, the supply chain has unkinked—at least, as long as IVF is legal.

In February, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with a concurring opinion by Chief Justice Tom Parker that quoted scripture.

To continue IVF while complying with such a ruling would set assisted reproductive technology back decades.

But the ruling is just the latest potential roadblock for a substance that, as Lunenfeld has described it, turned “urine into gold”—on a road dotted, at every turn, with disparate and powerful men.

A thing nobody tells you about trying to get pregnant is all the pee.

There is, of course, the ubiquitous at-home pregnancy test.

If it detects the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin, which the body begins producing shortly after implantation and is excreted in urine, the test flashes a smiley face or darkens a line, the happily ever after of the conception “journey.”

But if you don’t get pregnant the first time you glance unprotected at a penis—as some sixth-grade health classes may lead you to believe—you might purchase an ovulation predictor kit.

The cheapest version of these are small test strips which, when dipped into urine, measure the body’s levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), a rise in which triggers ovulation.

If you purchase a 50-pack on your cell phone late one night, your social media algorithm may start serving you alternative methods of pregnancy prediction, like the scientifically unfounded sugar test (pee on sugar crystals and read them like tea leaves, approximately $5) or more advanced tech, like the Mira, Inito, or Oova, to catch the fertile window by tracking LH, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), and more (pee on dipsticks and insert them into a digital device, $150 and up).

Your acupuncturist might suggest the Dutch Urine Test, a $499 panel “that provide[s] a complete evaluation of sex and adrenal hormones.”

The instructions before a pelvic ultrasound will be to drink 32 ounces of water one hour prior, because a full bladder will help reposition the bowels for a clear view of the uterus, but after the external exam the tech will send you to the bathroom to urinate because the intravaginal imaging requires an empty bladder.

On the TryingForABaby Subreddit, a refrain: “Pee on everything!”

THE G CLUB

Bruno Lunenfeld was born in 1927 to a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna; his father, David, was a lawyer whose office represented the House of Habsburg, a fierce opponent of Nazism.

As Adolf Hitler’s influence grew throughout the ’30s, David began making plans for his family to escape the country, only to be detained by Nazi forces.

In 1938, Bruno, a round-faced 11-year-old with wide, inquisitive blue eyes, joined a Kindertransport bound for England.

(He would later learn that Nazi soldiers forced his father and uncle onto a Dachau-bound transport train, and that his uncle was shot and killed en route, while his father was later moved from Dachau to Buchenwald.)

While at a camp in Dovercourt waiting to be placed with a British foster family, Lunenfeld took 10 British pounds secreted into his sock by his mother, bought his own ticket to London, and found a policeman who eventually united him with an uncle living nearby.

He attended various local boarding schools until 1940, when members of the French military reunited him with his parents, who had escaped to Mandatory Palestine—“It was not Israel” at that point, Lunenfeld says—though he never understood how.

At school in Tel Aviv, Lunenfeld struggled to learn Hebrew, having been raised on German and then English.

Following the Italian Air Force’s bombing of the city in September 1940, his parents enrolled him at St. George’s, a British boarding school in Jerusalem.

Lunenfeld became interested in studying medicine after a close friend died of polio, but Israel had no medical school.

He ultimately earned his MD and PhD at the University of Geneva—where, he notes ruefully, he worked in French.

For his doctorate in endocrinology, Lunenfeld studied under Hubert de Watteville and Rudi Borth, who were working with the Swiss pharmaceutical firm CIBA to test an oral drug designed to ease the symptoms of menopause.

During clinical trials on patients experiencing vaginal dryness, hot flashes, and brain fog, Lunenfeld and Borth began experimenting with the patients’ urine, injecting small amounts into immature mice.

(Scientists already knew that urine contained hormones; in one early pregnancy test, developed in the 1930s, doctors injected rabbits with women’s urine, then killed and dissected the animals to examine their ovaries, which developed growths in response to pregnancy hormones.)

Lunenfeld, Borth, and de Watteville hoped that the menopausal urine might hold answers to what caused the unpleasant symptoms.

Instead, the injections caused the mice to ovulate and even “hyperovulate,” in which ovarian follicles develop into not one but multiple mature eggs.

Equally surprising was that after Lunenfeld treated the same menopausal women with a 90-day course of CIBA’s drug, which contained estrogen and testosterone, the women’s urine stopped the mice from becoming fertile.

Lunenfeld and his professors hadn’t simply stumbled upon a potential treatment for women experiencing amenorrhea—a lack of menstruation that can mean they’re not ovulating—they had discovered a contraceptive too.

At the time, the research had limited funds, provided by the Swiss government.

“We had to decide, are we going into the direction of contraception, or are we going in the direction of infertility?” Lunenfeld says. “I was biased, of course. This was just after the war, and so many people got killed. So I thought, Maybe the better thing now is to go into infertility and help women who couldn’t have babies, to have babies.”

But Lunenfeld, Borth, and de Watteville couldn’t simply begin injecting would-be mothers with human waste.

“We had to test biological studies, biochemical studies, biostatistical studies, and so on,” Lunenfeld recalls.

They didn’t have the knowledge or manpower.

At the time, Lunenfeld had just finished consulting on a film for Hoffmann-LaRoche (now known as Roche AG, one of the biggest public pharmaceutical companies in the world).

The producer was a German refugee who’d caught the last train into Switzerland.

Over dinner at a Geneva train station with de Watteville and the producer, Lunenfeld listed the five people in the world who could help them.

The producer made him a bet:

That night Lunenfeld would send five telegrams, inviting them to Geneva.

If they accepted, de Watteville would pay for their travel and accommodations.

If they declined, the producer would buy him two cases of his favorite wine—Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

By the end of the next day, Lunenfeld had received affirmative responses from all but one.

“The guy from Scotland,” Lunenfeld says, “sent it by post.”

In the summer of 1953, Lunenfeld and his adviser had convened a murderers’ row of endocrinologists, chemists, biologists, and others to develop standards, assay procedures, and purification methods for this miracle substance extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women.

What to call it?

The summit landed on “human menopausal gonadotropin,” or hMG. And they decided to call themselves the G Club.

“ALL THE URINE IN THE WORLD”

Nearly three decades prior to Lunenfeld’s research, scientists had discovered gonadotropins, a family of peptide hormones that control ovarian and testicular functioning.

They extracted these hormones from the blood of pregnant horses (dubbed Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin), which could stimulate ovulation in humans when injected.

But women treated with these gonadotropins also formed neutralizing antibodies.

The urine-derived hMG, which contained a naturally occurring combination of FSH and LH, had no such limiting side effect.

In a 2004 issue of the Human Reproductive Update journal, Lunenfeld described the production of hMG as “a relatively simple procedure.”

A chemist mixes menopausal urine with activated kaolin clay—shaken, not stirred.

“The suspension is left to settle at room temperature and then centrifuged.”

Liquid is discarded, kaolin is eluted, proteins are washed, acidified, precipitated, filtered, and treated.

It wasn’t the method of purification but the means of collection that proved challenging.

The average adult produces somewhere around 2 liters of urine per day.

“It takes about a day’s supply of urine from 10 women in order to produce a single therapeutic dose,” Lunenfeld told the Silicon Valley–founded nonprofit Israel 21C in 2012—in other words, one New York City water tower’s worth would be needed to run clinical trials.

To present his findings to Serono that spring day in 1957, the company had agreed to put Lunenfeld up for three nights in a “very nice hotel, a beautiful little thing” owned by the sister of someone in Serono management.

But the discussions between Lunenfeld, Prince Pacelli, and Serono’s chemist Piero Donini required more runway.

For nearly two weeks, Pacelli “took care of everything,” Lunenfeld says, extending his hotel stay with “full board for me.”

Lunenfeld remembers the prince as broad-minded and widely studied.

By day the men talked logistics; in the evening, Lunenfeld joined Donini at his home for dinner presided over by a white-gloved servant.

The head of Serono, Pietro Bertarelli, and his son Fabio (who would become CEO in 1965) were also present for discussions.

A fanciful booklet that Serono produced in 1996, provided by the Merck archive, paints the story of seven people sitting around a table discussing the logistics of the proposed project.

“I need the urine of thousands of menopausal ladies,” an anonymous interlocutor says. “We can collect urine, we will collect urine, we need to collect urine…I need all the urine in the world!”

“There could be no contamination of pregnancy,” Lunenfeld tells me.

The introduction of hormones from even one pregnant person would ruin the batch.

In the immortal words of Mel Brooks: Send in the nuns!

We won’t be hearing from these women, the linchpins to this story.

Details on their exact location and order are lost to the maw of time—or perhaps buried as a line item in the Vatican archives.

(The Vatican did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

Given their already advanced age at the time of Serono’s collection, it’s safe to say that none are alive today and few, if any, are likely to have direct familial descendants.

A representative from Merck Serono declined to answer questions about the women, citing a lack of documentation.

Lunenfeld never met them.

“Nuns present a special case in terms of memory and representation, since often their beliefs cause them to shy away from both,” writes Flora Derounian, a lecturer at the University of Sussex.

Her 2023 book Women’s Work in Post-War Italy includes oral histories of nuns who lived in beautiful apostolic “mother houses” in Rome between 1945 and 1965, two of which functioned as retirement homes, where young novitiates cared for elderly sisters—likely a similar arrangement to the casa di riposo that Serono ended up tapping.

Most would have entered the convent at age 18, having relinquished their given names and taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

They slept in single rooms with a bed and a desk, ate simple meals, fasted on Fridays.

They lived regimented days, focused on obedience to the Mother Superior and guided by the tolling of bells.

On a call, Derounian describes the communal wardrobes the women shared, from their black and white habits—some of which included a cornette, an elaborate veil “pointed almost like an admiral’s hat”—down to socks and undergarments.

“Their individuality was subsumed in the congregation,” says Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who oversees the History of Women Religious, an academic organization devoted to the study of Catholic sisters.

Even so-called “particular attachments” between nuns were discouraged.

In exchange, Sprows Cummings says, they received a path to education and protection from unhappy marriages, divorce, and death by childbirth.

“Not only were they not pregnant, but would have never been pregnant—the vast majority of them, if not all of them.”

Serono’s donors may have dwelled in the quiet halls of a contemplative convent, which emphasized prayer, or an apostolic one, whose sisters served in such roles as teachers, nurses, or seamstresses.

Some made products: herbal medicines, biscuits.

Others, in Rome, cleaned and cooked at the Vatican.

The very elderly of all orders spent much of their time murmuring prayers.

“The structure of convent life would’ve been, at that point, essentially unchanged for centuries,” says Sprows Cummings—and the convents, she says, “were bursting,” their numbers nearing an all-time high.

If the nuns in 1958 were informed of their new ministry, “at a time when everything was on the verge of changing, with the birth control pill,” they might have seen it as “a way to cement the Catholic teaching about how important it is to be open to babies, and to have as many babies as possible.”

According to Lunenfeld, the nuns were Pacelli’s “fantastic” idea.

After days of mulling over logistics—and behind-the-scenes talks to which Lunenfeld was not privy—the prince took the proposal back to the Serono board, joined by Lunenfeld.

“He presented the project to them. And then he said, ‘The pope is interested.’ ”

IL NIPOTISMO

At 5:30 p.m. on March 2, 1939, a puff of white smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel—and then promptly turned black.

Confusion reigned until, according to Inside the Vatican magazine, the secretary of the conclave sent a note to Vatican Radio that regardless of what color the smoke appeared to be, it was white.

The cardinals had elected an inside man, the first Roman pope since the 18th century. Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli took his papal name, Pope Pius XII, on his 63rd birthday.

The Pacellis—Don Giulio included—were members of the black nobility, aristocratic families with titles granted by the Church and deep loyalty to the papacy.

Eugenio’s grandfather, Marcantonio, had served as minister of foreign affairs under Pope Pius IX and in 1861 founded the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano;

Eugenio’s uncle Ernesto had founded the Banco di Roma in 1880.

And in 1929 his elder brother, Francesco, a legal adviser to Pope Pius XI, had negotiated the Lateran Treaty with Benito Mussolini, which granted Vatican City sovereign independence.

Pius XII had a serious look to him, owllike, with dark eyes made larger behind wire-rimmed glasses.

His pale skin, as correspondent Corrado Pallenberg put it in his 1960 book, Inside the Vatican, “resembled old parchment, yet at the same time it had the surprisingly transparent effect, as if reflecting from the inside a cold, white flame.”

Pius XII had served as an ecclesiastical ambassador to Germany under his predecessor and was widely believed to have been elected due to his experience in diplomacy.

A few days after his election, Pius received a congratulatory telegraph from Hitler.

“A rather cold and uncommunicative person,” Pallenberg wrote of Pius, “he did not feel at ease in the Vatican world, 95 percent of which consisted of easygoing, jovial Italians who enjoyed good food, amusing talk and a bit of gossip.”

As a boy, one of Pius XII’s favorite games had been pretending to give Mass.

He surrounded himself with a group of confidants that included his personal doctors; the Bavarian nun, Mother Pascalina Lehnert, his housekeeper for more than 40 years; and, after Francesco died, his brother’s adult sons.

Plenty of popes kept family close.

The word nepotism stems from Gregorio Leti’s 1667 book Il Nipotismo di Roma, or The History of the Popes’ Nephews, an often-ribald account of the Renaissance-era golden age of popes granting wealth, titles, and special privileges to their relatives.

(Some of whom were whispered to be secret sons of the popes themselves, as in the case of Alexander VI, “a barbarous, lascivious Pope” who took “great delight to be embraced and caress’d by fair Ladies; whence the numbers of his Bastards was very great.”)

Of Pius’s nephews, Carlo, the eldest, was regarded as the favorite.

He alone, wrote Pallenberg, had access to the pope’s apartment for private meetings.

But all enjoyed privileges, some of which began even before their uncle became the Lord’s earthly shepherd.

Marcantonio, the middle brother, presided over a flour mill, a sink and toilet manufacturer, and a real estate and construction empire.

The youngest brother was the one and only Don Giulio Pacelli, “a well known man about the Vatican,” as a reporter once described him.

In 1940, Pius XII officiated Giulio’s wedding in his private chapel; three years later, Giulio named his first son Eugenio, after his uncle.

Giulio was also a lawyer and a colonel in the Noble Guard, a group comprising sons of aristocratic families that saw no active military service (which did not stop him from wearing a uniform of a crisp dark jacket with gilded embellishments and gold fringed epaulets, knee-high leather riding boots, a helmet, and a saber).

Among his business positions (for which he favored the less flamboyant uniform of a dark suit over a white shirt and tie), Giulio was a representative to the administration of the Propaganda Fide, then the Church’s missionary arm; a member of the boards of both the railway Ferrovie del Sud-Est and the Pacelli-founded Banco di Roma;

president of the Swiss arm of that bank;

vice president of an Italian gas company;

papal envoy to Costa Rica;

and an executive committee member of Gherardo Casini Editore (the house that, incidentally, published the Italian version of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics in 1951).

And for a time he was the president of a company on whose board he served for more than a decade: Istituto Farmacologico Serono.

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

On December 8, 1953, Pius XII celebrated a new pontifical initiative: the opening of the Church’s inaugural Marian Year, aimed to “revive Catholic Faith and earnest devotion to the Mother of God” that the observant might “conform their lives to the image of the same Virgin.”

The day was a triumph, but a few weeks later Pius XII suffered a debilitating attack of hiccups, vomiting, and nausea, for which he sought treatment from one Paul Niehans. (The Swiss surgeon and former Protestant minister practiced a controversial “rejuvenation treatment.”

At the Clinique La Prairie on Lake Geneva, he injected the buttocks of his famous patients—rumored to include King George VI, Hedda Hopper, and Somerset Maugham—with the cells of fetal lambs and calves, delivered via cesarean section from the bodies of their freshly slaughtered mothers. For the pope, he made house calls.)

By the power of God, Niehans’s ministrations, or pure luck, Pius XII recovered, only for his illness to fell him again in late 1954.

His doctors and nephews arrived at his bedside, believing the end was near.

But a week later the pope was asking for an egg. “Tell him he can have not only one egg, but two,” Time reported a gastrointestinal specialist telling his personal physician, “and have them flipped with Marsala, if he agrees.”

Conception, immaculate and otherwise, was much on Pius XII’s mind in the final years of his life.

The Second World Congress on Fertility and Sterility—for which Lunenfeld’s own Professor de Watteville was one of 12 committee members—convened in Naples on May 18, 1956, for a nine-day summit: some 180 paper presentations, excursions to Amalfi and Pompeii, parties and fashion shows “to entertain the ladies,” and a special pilgrimage to Rome for an address from the pope.

“It is entirely true that your zeal to pursue research on marital infertility and the means to overcome it,” Pius XII told his listeners, as translated from the original Latin by Ronald L. Conte Jr., “engages high spiritual and ethical values, which should be taken into account.” He also said, “As regards artificial fertilization, not only is there need to be extremely reserved, but it must be absolutely excluded.”

A year later, Lunenfeld sat with Giulio Pacelli and Piero Donini, musing over the design needs of the special toilets they planned to install in the convent.

They settled on a teardrop-shaped container akin to a small trash can, lined with a plastic bag.

Throughout 1958, elderly nuns hiked up their habits, crouched over the containers, and voided their bladders.

Serono employees collected the bags of urine and transported them to the Rome laboratory at Via Casilina, where technicians emptied them into metal tanks for processing.

(During a 1930s Netherlands-based urine collection program, the people tasked with picking up donations were called pissmannekes, or “small piss men.”)

By 1959, Serono had harvested enough hMG to begin trials on infertile women.

Lunenfeld, back in Israel, where he was working as a visiting scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, wanted to treat his own hypothalamic amenorrheic patients with the drug, hoping to induce ovulation.

The head of the hospital instructed Lunenfeld to inject himself with the substance.

If he didn’t sustain any major side effects, they’d go forward with treatment.

Lunenfeld wasn’t particularly worried about what it might do to his own reproductive health.

For one thing, he says, “I already had a son.”

After the first injection, which an intern administered, Lunenfeld ran a high temperature, an effect of protein buildup in the solution.

He and Donini increased purification methods and Lunenfeld continued to test and burn.

On the fifth attempt, they were in the clear.

Lunenfeld never patented his findings, which could have made him a very rich man.

He says his greatest compensation was the ability to bring the research material and lab equipment to Israel, a “gift” from Serono.

For a short time there, he ran a urine collection program at local elderly care centers, where postmenopausal Israeli women occupied themselves by making baby clothes for the future children their urine would, ideally, help conceive.

In 1962, the first previously amenorrheic, infertile woman treated with hMG gave birth to a healthy baby.

Two more women became pregnant, though they later miscarried.

Still, this was an enormous success, and the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (today worth $16 billion), working in conjunction with Serono, registered the compound as Pergonal.

That year Lunenfeld became the head of the Institute of Endocrinology at Tel-Hashomer Hospital, now called Sheba Medical Center.

Under his direction, the program grew exponentially, and the institution became a World Health Organization international reference center for fertility-promoting drugs.

One former research assistant, Danny Lieberman, who performed data science in Lunenfeld’s lab in the mid-1970s, describes him as “a paper machine” whose 20-person team published something like 100 research papers in a single year—the entire physics department, by contrast, might produce five.

But what particularly distinguished Lunenfeld, Lieberman remembers, was his broad, inquisitive interest in how science functioned within real human lives.

He once happened upon the nonobservant Lunenfeld, kippah on head, poring over the Torah.

Lunenfeld had been attending weekly study sessions with a rabbi in the hopes that he might learn how to better treat the some 20 percent of his patients who observed the Halakhah, which places constraints on sexual relations according to monthly menstrual cycles.

“I am sad about the suicide which Israel is committing,” Lunenfeld says today.

During his conscription in the Israeli army, he served under Yitzhak Rabin, who would first become prime minister in 1974.

The two remained friends.

When a far-right extremist who opposed Rabin’s signing of the Oslo Accords assassinated the prime minister following what was widely seen as a peace rally, “for me, this was the end of Israel,” Lunenfeld says. “It was not what I fought for.”

The United States granted Lunenfeld a green card in 2001, and for much of the year he resides in Florida, returning to Tel Aviv to visit his children and grandchildren who still live there.

His eldest son, Eitan, is the head of the IVF unit at the teaching hospital for Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The Lunenfelds are part of a long lineage of fertility specialists in Israel, where the birth rate remains substantially higher than that of other industrialized countries.

Milk and Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land (2023), by Israel-born Tamar Novick, a visiting scholar at the Humboldt University of Berlin, traces a decades-long Judeo-Christian effort to promote fruitfulness in an unfamiliar climate—from Alsatian Christian missionary beekeepers, to dairy farmers during the British mandate, to Israeli scientists, including Lunenfeld—alongside the ways in which the knowledge and practices of the Palestinian people shaped European governance and settlement in the region.

Novick has a fascination with the science of excrement, plus a wry sense of humor; “Taking the Piss” and “Deep Shit” are the titles of two recent presentations.

Her current project is entitled Fountain of Knowledge: How Science Turned Urine Into Gold.

In Milk and Honey, Novick writes that with the Industrial Revolution, “technology did not replace religion as a colonial device but instead was blended with aspirations to salvage the land,” becoming “crucial for seizing control over lands and people.”

Religion, science, and politics intertwined. “Reproduction is such a fertile ground to think about this merging,” she tells me. “Those three elements are always at play.”

DEATH AND TAXES

During the fall of 1958, a depleted Pius XII retired to the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo, the Holy See’s 135-acre summer palace situated high in the hills above Lake Albano, just southeast of Rome.

In the palace courtyard, uniformed schoolchildren gathered to pray, and a knot of reporters set upon the few figures allowed in and out of the residence.

On October 9, while lying in his single brass-frame bed, Pius took his final breaths.

“A small crowd of people was present in the Pope’s bedroom when he died,” reported The Catholic Standard and Times the next day. Among them were princes Carlo, Marcantonio, and Giulio.

The death of a pope is always an upheaval, but in recent decades perhaps for none more personally than the three nephews, who learned firsthand the mortality of blood ties.

Within months, according to one of several articles published by Der Spiegel that year regarding Vatican finances, the commander of the Noble Guard suggested that the Pacelli brothers take a hiatus from their duties within the unit, and the boards of multiple companies requested their resignations.

While abrupt, this was merely the apotheosis of public frustration that had been long brewing around the financial advantages afforded the three men through their relationship to the pope.

And Giulio Pacelli was at the center of the ire, which dated back to his 1946 appointment as papal envoy and plenipotentiary minister of Costa Rica.

The following year, the government had taken aim at tax evasion with an article in the Italian Constitution of 1947 decreeing that “all shall contribute to public expenditure in accordance with their means.”

Pacelli, an Italian citizen, nonetheless hoped to make use of a technicality that exempted diplomatic representatives of foreign powers living in Italy from the tax.

Members of the Vatican State Secretariat obligingly agreed.

The Italian government did not.

For nearly a decade Rome and the Vatican argued the issue, during which time Pacelli’s fortune grew.

In 1955, the Christian Democratic Party minister of finance broke with precedent and popular opinion, officially granting Pacelli immunity.

But by the spring of 1958 (as the nuns diligently urinated), political parties had begun wielding the issue as anticlerical ammunition: “The Pope’s Nephews Don’t Pay Their Taxes” read the headline of L’Espresso, a left-wing weekly.

Later that summer, the same magazine published a list of 11 Catholic laymen who managed the substantial spending power of the Vatican, which included the three Pacellis.

Together, the brothers held positions on some 50 supervisory boards, and their personal combined net worth had dilated to an estimated 18 billion lire, 10 billion of which Giulio held primarily in foreign investments—the equivalent of about $170 million today.

To many, Pius XII’s death marked the beginning of a shift at the Vatican. His successor, John XXIII, convened the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, which made a crack in the inscrutability of the Church (and coincided with a mass exodus of women religious).

According to Der Spiegel, after learning that certain banks and industrial plants had made overtures to some of his family members in Northern Italy, he forbade his rural relatives from accepting supervisory board positions during his tenure—in response, perhaps, to the complications caused by the Pacelli brothers.

Vatican II heralded larger financial changes.

Back in 1942, Pius XII had created the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, or IOR, to serve as the Vatican’s financial stronghold—the profits of which, under the Lateran Treaty, were exempt from Italian taxation.

A decade later, according to Lunenfeld, the Vatican acquired a 25 percent stake in Istituto Farmacologico Serono.

In 1968, Italy’s parliament voted to resume taxing dividends on stocks held by the Vatican.

Consequently, the Vatican decided it would be prudent to relieve itself of some of its major investments.

The IOR turned to Michele Sindona, a financier with ties to both Hollywood and the Mob, who for years had been insinuating himself into Vatican financial affairs, acquiring banks and holding companies in which the IOR retained significant stakes.

The IOR sloughed Serono off to Sindona as well. By 1971 it still held at least a 3 percent stake in the pharmaceutical company, but that year, Italy approved the marketing of contraceptive pills, and certain church-versus-science discrepancies became too obvious to ignore:

While Serono had been producing a contraceptive called Luteolas for some years, because the pill was illegal, they had billed it as a treatment for “gynecological disorders.”

When the pill went public, according to Der Spiegel, Giulio Pacelli finally resigned as president of the Serono board, citing the Vatican’s firm stance against birth control.

Fabio Bertarelli, who had taken over from his father as CEO of Serono, had been fighting to secure ownership of the company for decades.

As the Italian government issued warrants for Sindona’s arrest in 1974 on charges of fraudulent bankruptcy, the financier fled the country and Bertarelli scooped up his Serono shares, gaining a majority stake in the company.

(After allegedly ordering a Mafia hit on the bankruptcy lawyer tasked with liquidating one of his collapsed banks, Sindona died from cyanide poisoning in an Italian prison.)

By 1990, the company was supplying half the world’s fertility drugs, and Bertarelli was worth $1.5 billion. Upon Fabio’s death in 1996, control of the company moved to his son Ernesto who, four years later, listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange and in 2007 sold the family’s majority stake to Merck for $13.3 billion. Later that year he commissioned a 318-foot superyacht, the Vava II.

THE FANTASTIC DRUG

In the beginning, Pergonal did its job too well. A 1965 issue of Life described it as “the fantastic drug that creates quintuplets,” as women in California, New York, and Sweden gave birth to sets of many babies.

Urine collectors recruited donors through door-knocking campaigns and made daily drop-offs to plants in Umbria and Benevento; from there, refrigerated trucks transported frozen hormone adsorbate to Rome.

Soon Serono added collection centers in Argentina, the Netherlands, and Spain to the ones in Israel and Italy, with 600 women contributing, which could produce 40,000 ampoules per year—then enough to treat the worldwide population of hypopituitary-hypogonadotropic amenorrheic women.

The introduction of IVF—for which multiple mature eggs are ideal—and new protocols prescribing hMG to patients with tubal factor infertility increased demand.

By 1985, 2,000 women in the US were prescribed the drug. Soon patients worldwide required 30 million liters of urine; when hMG became part of a protocol in male factor infertility, the number ballooned to 70 million.

(Lunenfeld turned his own research to male infertility and founded the International Society for the Study of the Aging Male in 1997.)

In 1995, despite twice-daily pickups from 100,000 urine donors, a shortage of Pergonal caused panicked patients to hoard prescriptions. “I feel like an addict,” one woman told The New York Times.

Eleven years later, Serono phased out Pergonal (focusing instead on another fertility product, Gonal-f, made from hamster ovary cells) and Ferring released Menopur.

Citing proprietary information, a Ferring spokesperson declined to answer detailed questions (including where urine is collected, and whether donors are compensated), and sent a statement which read, in part, “Ferring believes that everyone has the right to build a family and to choose their own path to parenthood. We recognize and work to address diverse family building needs and fertility journeys, including for the LGBTQ+ and ‘single parent by choice’ communities who use in vitro fertilization to start or grow their families.”

(The website of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Institut Biochimique SA, which produces a similar menotropin, Meriofert, is more transparent about its sourcing: “Every day the urine of pregnant or post-menopausal donors is collected in rural Chinese villages.”

A representative for IBSA declined to provide information on donor compensation, stating that “IBSA decides to cover product topics only in scientific journals.”)

In February, Pope Francis, who last year reaffirmed the Vatican’s anti-IVF stance, addressed the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a papal-appointed body responsible for developing Catholic teachings and positions on such topics as abortion, artificial intelligence, and IVF. “For those committed to a serious and evangelical renewal of thought,” Francis said, “it is essential to call into question even settled opinions and assumptions that have not been critically examined.”

(A few weeks later Tim Kaine, who is Catholic, brought to the State of the Union, as his guest, Elizabeth Carr—America’s first IVF baby, courtesy of Pergonal.)

While the pope made his address, Lunenfeld and his wife were in the middle of a vacation to celebrate his 97th birthday, beginning with a cruise from Fiji around New Zealand and Australia.

From there he continued to Singapore, where he reunited with old colleagues, including three of Serono’s former Singapore-based representatives.

At one point during our conversations, I ask him about his own relationship to religion.

“This is very strange,” he says, “very strange.”

He has a hard time defining it. His wife, who’s agnostic, calls him religious.

He doesn’t keep kosher, but he prays every morning.

“I believe in God because so many things, good things, happened to me. Thinking of the Kindertransport, something must have helped me, somewhere,” he says. “This is something which is troubling me a lot to understand—and there’s no way to understand.” No small thing for someone whose life’s work has been tracking down answers.

“Everything was miracles.”

[denimbex1986]

'With a single tremendous flash across the New Mexico desert, J. Robert Oppenheimer — director of the Manhattan Project to develop the world's first atomic bomb — became the most famous scientist of his generation.

The piercing light, dimming to reveal a terrible fireball growing in the sky above the July 1945 Los Alamos test site, heralded the dawn of the atomic age. A physicist, polymath and mystic, Oppenheimer recalled greeting the mushroom cloud with a line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita that he had taught himself Sanskrit to read: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

The creation of the atomic bombs and their subsequent devastation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to World War II, beginning a new era that would transform Oppenheimer into a historical icon. Yet his remorse for what he built and his opposition to its further development drove him into conflict with the U.S. military, and the government revoked his security clearance due to his communist sympathies. Oppenheimer ultimately died a broken man.

Ahead of the July 21 release of Christopher Nolan's biopic "Oppenheimer," Live Science sat down with historian Kai Bird, Oppenheimer's biographer and co-author of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Knopf, 2005), the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that inspired the film.

We discussed Oppenheimer's rise and fall, his development of the bomb, and the way he altered human history forever.

Live Science: The Manhattan Project was an immense effort. It took thousands of scientists working tirelessly throughout the war — spending the modern-day equivalent of $24 billion — before it was completed. How instrumental was Oppenheimer in the construction of the bomb? What was his motivation for building it?

Bird: Well, he became the director of the scientific lab for the Manhattan Project, and it was his notion to have the main lab and build the bomb in Los Alamos. He built the gadget in two and a half years, and everyone who worked on it that we interviewed all said that it would never have happened if Oppenheimer had not been the director. He inspired people to work hard and to figure out, in a timely fashion, all the various engineering problems associated with building the bomb.

As for his motivation, it was quite clear. As a young man, he studied quantum physics in Germany under Max Born. While there, he'd attended lectures by [Werner] Heisenberg — the famous German theorist of quantum mechanics' uncertainty principle — and he knew that Heisenberg and other German scientists were just as capable as he was of understanding the physics of the atomic bomb and the potential for a weapon of mass destruction, and he feared that by 1942, the Germans were probably 18 months ahead in the race to build this weapon.

Politically, he was a man of the left. He feared fascism and feared that the German scientists were going to hand this weapon of mass destruction to Hitler, who would use it to win the war. That was his worst nightmare.

Live Science: Yet by the time they had built and successfully tested the bomb, his motives had become muddied. You write that he was anxiously puffing his pipe, repeatedly referring to Hiroshima's citizens as "those poor little people." Yet that same week, he was giving the military precise instructions on how to make the bomb explode over them with maximum efficiency.

Bird: I'm glad you picked up on that. It's a really incisive anecdote that gives you a sense of the man, his complexity and his ambivalence about what he was doing.

By the spring of 1945, all the Los Alamos scientists working so hard to build this gadget knew that the war in Europe was over. So why were they doing it? They actually had a meeting to discuss this difficult political issue. Oppenheimer attended — he stood at the back of the room, listened to the arguments and then stepped forward to quote Niels Bohr.

Bohr had arrived in Los Alamos on the last day of 1943. He greeted Oppenheimer with, "Robert, is it really big enough?" He wanted to know if the gadget was going to be big enough to end all war.

Oppenheimer made this argument to his ambivalent scientists in Los Alamos. He told them that this weapon is known now, there are no secrets behind the physics, and the power and awfulness of this weapon needs to be demonstrated in this war. Otherwise, the next war is going to be fought by nuclear-armed adversaries, and it will end in Armageddon. That was the argument. It was an interesting argument. It was also a rationalization.

Live Science: After the war, Oppenheimer became nuclear weapons' most vocal critic — resisting efforts to make a more powerful hydrogen bomb and referring to the Air Force's plans for massive strategic bombing with nuclear weapons as genocidal. What caused this reversal, and how did the military and intelligence establishments react?

Bird: This is what leads to his downfall. Because very soon after Hiroshima, we know from the letters that Kitty, his wife, wrote to friends that Oppenheimer had plunged into a deep period of depression; he became extremely morose.

Then he went back to Washington, and he learned more about how close the Japanese were to surrendering in September 1945. And he also learned more about the attitude of those in Washington and of the Truman administration to this new weapon — i.e., they want to build more of them and make U.S. national security entirely dependent on a huge arsenal of these weapons.

Oppenheimer thinks this is a mistake. As early as October 1945, he gave a public speech in Philadelphia in which he said that these weapons were weapons for aggressors. They are weapons of terror, they are not weapons for defense and the U.S. needs to find a way to construct an international control mechanism to prevent their proliferation.

He was coming out against the notion that we should rely on these weapons for our defense. And that was a direct threat to the War Department, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, who all wanted bigger budgets to acquire more of these weapons.

So Oppenheimer became a threat. And this was precisely what led, in late 1953, to the first steps to strip him of his security clearance, put him on trial in a kangaroo court setting and publicly humiliate him.

Live Science: Some of the people who knew Oppenheimer felt he was — in the words of his fellow physicist and friend Isidor Rabi — someone who "never got to be an integrated personality." And Einstein referred to him using the Yiddish word "narr": fool. What were they getting at with these remarks?

Bird: Oppenheimer was a polymath and somewhat of a mystic, and he was attracted to Hindu mysticism, which Rabi thought was a sign of a less-than-integrated personality. But I do think Rabi was onto something. And Einstein too.

Before his trial in 1954, Oppenheimer visits Einstein to explain that he's about to go down to Washington. He tells him he'll be absent from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton [where Oppenheimer served as director from 1947 to 1966] for some weeks because he's going to be put on trial in this security hearing.

And Einstein turns to him and says something along the lines of, "But, Robert, why are you bothering if they don't want you and your advice anymore? You're Mr. Atomic; just walk away." Oppenheimer replies with, "Oh, you don't understand, Albert. I need to use my status and my platform to influence Washington policymakers and give them my advice. They don't understand this technology, and I need to use my celebrity for a good purpose."

In fact, Oppenheimer was fighting the security hearing precisely because he wanted to be a player. He wanted to be inside the establishment. He wanted to walk the halls of power in Washington and to have meetings with the president in the Oval Office. He was attracted to all of that, and he found it difficult to walk away from. So after Oppenheimer leaves the room, Einstein turns to his secretary and says, "There goes a nar."

And yes, he was being foolish and naive, politically. He had no idea what he was about to walk into. The security hearing in Washington was all rigged against him. He'd made really powerful political enemies in Washington, and he was going to be destroyed. Einstein was right to call him a narr.

Live Science: Oppenheimer's legacy is tied to a terrifying weapon that we have avoided using in war again. Let's say we skip 100 years or so into the future. How do you think people will remember him?

Bird: That depends on what happens and how well we live with the bomb. Say that in the next few years or decades there's another nuclear war. Oppenheimer is going to be seen as the scientist who is responsible for that, too.

The incredible thing is, we will still be talking about him in 100 years. Human beings are increasingly drenched in science and technology. We're now going to be grappling with artificial intelligence. You would think that we would be turning to scientists and technology experts to ask the right questions about how to integrate all the science into our daily lives without destroying our humanity.

And yet, many people seem to have an innate distrust of scientists and expertise. I trace some of that back to the roots of Oppenheimer's public humiliation in 1954. It sent a message to scientists everywhere: Do not get out of your narrow lane, do not become a public intellectual and do not speak out about politics or policy.

But, unfortunately, that's precisely what we need. We need more Oppenheimers who are willing to speak the hard truths about how to integrate science and make it so that it's not destructive but an empathetic part of our human existence.'

[someonestolemyshoes]

Yo, saw your post about levihan prompts:

How about Hange discovering Levi’s secret hobby (of your choice)

Feel free to do whatever you feel like

And I love your work! 💕 have a good day

Hello! So sorry for the delay in this one, but thank you so much for your patience 🙏 I got stuck for such a long time in the middle of this ksksks but it is finally done! I also played around a little bit with the whole...discovering a secret aspect, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway! And I hope you're ready for some sweet sweet childhood friends levihan~

**

Levi likes photography.

This, in itself, is no great secret. Hange can barely remember a time he wasn't following after her with a camera strapped around his neck, or packed into his bag—always within reach, should something striking catch his eye. A little neon plastic toy, at first; each click of the shutter cycled through preloaded images, expert shots of famous landscapes, places they could only dream of seeing. And then, a polaroid—still a toy, in essence, still plastic, still gaudy, but this one took real pictures in real time, and spit them out into their eager, shaking fingers within seconds.

Hange remembers them ruthlessly wafting the little laminate squares and watching with bated breath as black mottled into foggy grey, as the blurred silhouette of the park bench faded slowly into being. It was a fascinating thing, at the time. Magic at their fingertips. The picture turned out fuzzy and overexposed in places, where the sun had glared in over the corner of the park bench, but Levi had settled the little square on his little palms and looked at it like he held the whole world in his hands.

There were innumerable disposable cameras, too. Light little things with reels of film, never enough for Levi's insatiable desire to snap pictures of every single thing he saw. They spent half their childhood in the chemist, sitting in the hard plastic chairs, wriggling anxiously as they waited for the film to develop. Kuchel always handed them the envelope, fat with prints, with a small smile curling the corner of her mouth and a fond twinkle in her eye, and Levi always took it politely, while Hange gave a boisterous thanks, and the pair of them delved greedily into their spoils.

He was older, in his early teens, when he was gifted his first real camera. It was heavy, compared to all the others, a case made of metal with buttons and gadgets and a fancy screen on the back, to preview each picture he took. Levi was wholly enamoured with it. He spent hours adjusting it, figuring out what each button and knob did, how they affected each picture; took countless shots of the same rock in the park until he'd tested every combination of settings he could think of.

He had cycled through more cameras since then. Grown a small collection, each one a little different, a little more suited to particular shots. Hange understood the concept in theory, but the particulars were lost on her, and Levi never took the time to explain. Not that she minded—Levi's pictures were beautiful, breathtaking in the way he could capture even the most mundane details and make them something wondrous. Perhaps for the first and only time in her life, Hange had no desire for the magician to reveal his tricks.

He has an eye for things that Hange simply cannot see. She is observant—to a fault, at times, intensely analytical and endlessly curious. Everything is a question, an opportunity to research, to learn, but she doesn't see the way Levi does.

Wild daffodil. Narcissus pseudonarcissus. Hange sees a perennial flowering plant, native to Western Europe, classified by its pale yellow petals and elongated central trumpet. She sees phylogeny with a rich taxonomic history; subspecies originating all over the globe, some larger, some smaller, some more vibrant and some more muted. She sees anatomy, science.

Levi sees the way the evening sun rusts the buttery petals until they blush; sees the way dew drops hang like pearls from the tips of the leaves in the early morning, when the light is still smoky and thin. He sees a moment to be captured.

It should be impossible for a picture to hold so much detail. Hange can look at Levi's daffodil and feel the way the spring wind blows gently on her skin, the sun warm but the breeze a little biting, a remnant of the fading winter. She can smell the pollen heavy in the air, feel the tickle of short grass on her ankles, hear the trill of songbirds in the branches of distant trees.

His proclivity for photography grows with them. Hange's interests spear out in a thousand different directions, from physics and chemistry to botany, to engineering, to literature and mathematics, to history, languages and landscapes—life is a limitless source of information and Hange chases it every which way, insatiable.

And wherever she goes, Levi dutifully follows, with his camera in hand.

Until now.

Now, they are eighteen. The summer is lazily drawing to a close, and tomorrow, at 8:45am, Hange will be boarding a plane that will take her to the other side of the world to attend the university of her dreams.

And Levi will be staying here.

Despite Levi's perpetual scowling and indiscriminate grunting, their last evening together had overall been a pleasant one. Levi and Kuchel had worked hard on their meal, and it had been nice in a warm, filling kind of way, to spend her last night at home with the two of them.

Now, she and Levi are holed up in his bedroom, while Kuchel had insisted on doing the clean up herself. Hange's mind has been churning non-stop for weeks now, ramping up with each passing day, and tonight, her thoughts are unstoppable, and they spill from her with giddy, jittery excitement.

"The university is huge, but my course is pretty small—only like, 30 places. It'll be easy to get to know everybody."

"Nn."

"And did I tell you? There's a museum right on campus? They've got a huge collection, and I heard students can access it after the first semester."

"Hm."

"And there's a flower garden, too—they've got species from all over the world, Levi. They'll have plants I've never even heard of."

"You said."

"Oh! And—my accommodation isn't all that far from the coast. The water looks beautiful in all the pictures I've seen—look, see?"

"I know. You showed me already."

Hange looks up from her phone, where the screen is lit with a bright, sunny beach, tan sand and a stark blue ocean. Levi flicks his gaze over it and offers a noncommittal shrug of his shoulder. Hange frowns at him.

"You could at least pretend to be excited, you know."

Levi gives her a deadpan stare.

"It looks...warm."

Hange sits back with a thump, and kicks weakly at Levi's shin. She pouts over at him. "Better than nothing, I guess."

They sit at opposite ends of the window bench in Levi's bedroom, legs tangled haphazardly together in the space between them. The window was thrown open in some vain hope of tempting in a breeze, but the air is thick, and the soft wind that does blow is still stiflingly warm. It sways Levi's fringe against his brow, but does little to stave off the oppressive heat.

The sky outside is dark, but it is alive with stars. They cast bright sparks on an inky black canvas, and there is no moon in sight. Already, Levi has snapped pictures of it, twisted dials and pushed buttons and switched lenses until he was satisfied.

It is a beautiful sight. Infinite.

Hange lets one leg dangle out the open window. Levi gives her a sour look and wordlessly closes one hand around her other ankle. She has a long history of behaving carelessly—Levi has borne witness to one too many slips and stumbles to trust her entirely. It would be just like Hange, to miss her flight in favour of a trip to the emergency room.

His thumb strokes back and forth absently. There is a callus there, rough and catching, that scratches against her sensitive skin.

Her predominant feeling is one of excitement. Studying abroad had been a dream of hers for almost as long as Levi had owned a camera—to travel beyond the bounds of their small rural town, to see more, learn more, fuel the relentless hunger in her. But there is an undercurrent of something else, some squirming discomfort that refuses to settle. It intensifies with every sweep of Levi's thumb against her skin until it sits heavy in her gut.

She looks over at him. His gaze is trained out the window, a small frown furrowing the skin between his brows, but his eyes are glassy, with none of their usual sharp, unwavering focus. Whatever he is looking at, he is not really seeing it.

It would be a lie to say that his silence had not troubled her. He had been quiet throughout dinner, opting instead to listen to Hange and Kuchel's companionable chatter as he pushed his food around his plate, and he had barely said a word since they had cleared the table and retreated to his room. He had hardly even looked her way.

Irritation bubbles within her. Levi is always more subdued than she is, content to sit quietly while Hange babbles endlessly, about anything and everything. But he usually has something to say. His silence, today of all days, makes her angry. They have one night left like this—one more night to talk, face to face, before they will be separated for who knows how long, and Levi is offering her nothing.

"Levi," she says, before she can think. Something in her tone must startle him, for he blinks rapidly, as though pulled out of a daydream, and rolls his eyes to look in her direction. His gaze settles somewhere near her shoulder. She bristles. "Can you at least—"

"Levi?" Kuchel's voice is distant, floating up from the bottom of the stairs. Levi looks at the door instead. "Can you come give me a hand for a minute?"

Hange clamps her jaw shut. Levi casts her another sidelong glance, and ticks his tongue against the back of his teeth. He squeezes her ankle once, then pushes himself to his feet. "Don't fall, idiot. I won't be long."

Hange feels distinctly like a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum. It's immature, and perhaps it's unfair of her, but she had assumed that Levi's invitation for dinner might, at the very least, come with a little conversation.

She takes a deep, steadying breath. They never fight, not really—they bicker endlessly, poke each other's cheeks and pull each other's hair, childish rough housing that they never grew out of. But they don't fight and as grumpy as Hange feels about Levi's near silence, she doesn't want to start now. She runs a hand back through her hair and sweeps her eyes about the room, counting long, even breaths as she does.

Levi's room is immaculately neat and tidy. Everything has its place, on clean, dusted shelves, or stacked in straight, neat piles atop his desk. It is a level of organisation Hange has little energy for; she herself is a hurricane, picking up and dropping off detritus everywhere she goes.

But Levi's borderline obsessive cleanliness makes it easy to spot something that is out of place.

Hange's gaze falls on a drawer in the desk.  The drawer itself is as immaculate as everything else, gleaming wood and a reflectively polished brass handle. What catches her eye is the corner of a glossy piece of paper, caught when the drawer had been closed.

Hange is a curious creature. Rarely can she hold herself back from exploring an unknown, and now is no different. She unfolds herself from the bench and stretches to stand, then crosses the room on light, tip-toed feet.

Levi is, by and large, a rather private person. He does not share much of himself openly, hides behind an impassive mask, guards what is dear to him close to his chest. Hange is an exception to this rule, whether Levi wanted her to be or not.

As such, she has no real issue prying the drawer open, and is unsurprised by the predictable contents within.

Photographs.

Of course it was photographs.

Her lips tug up in a fond smile and her eyes roll, but it is as she is reaching in to flatten out the rumpled picture that had been poking out of the drawer, that she notices what they are photographs of.

Her.

Hange picks out a stack and sits cross-legged in the desk chair. She flips through them, eyes growing wider with each new picture she uncovers. Every single one is of her. Some recent, some not so recent—some must be from the very first real camera, for she is still in her braces, all thin, gangly limbs and scruffy hair and taped up glasses.

There are pictures of her in the winter, mitten-clad hands wrapped around a paper cup of hot chocolate, blowing steam into the chill air. She can see in stark clarity, the red tip of her nose and the chill bitten over her cheeks; she can almost feel the cold, taste the cocoa on her tongue.

She finds a picture of her from an autumn years gone by. She remembers it as though it were yesterday—they had spent the whole afternoon raking fallen leaves in the courtyard behind Kuchel's cafe, scooping them into a terribly tempting mound beneath the shedding tree. Hange had been unable to resist. Levi had captured her moments after her dive into the pile, sitting up with her weight propped back on her hands, dry leaves clinging to her messy hair and sticking to the fibres of her cardigan. The sun was low, and it cast her in a golden glow, highlighting the vibrant red and orange of the fall foliage around her, drawing out the auburn undertone in her hair and the amber of her eyes. Her smile is almost blinding.

Another shows her in the spring, laying on her belly in the long grass beside a row of blooming daffodils. There is a book spread open before her and she is, as expected, engrossed in it; Levi has snapped the shutter as she was turning the page, the thin edge of the paper caught between the delicate tips of her fingers.

Hange has never considered herself to be particularly pretty. She is just...Hange, a little bit of wild, a little bit of manic, a lot of clumsy and dirty. Being attractive has never been of much concern.

But there is something in the way Levi has photographed her, time and time again, in the way the light catches her, the candid ease of each new picture, that looks....beautiful, in its own way. Somehow, he has made her mess into a masterpiece.

Levi likes taking pictures of things. Plants, rocks, rivers, landscapes and skylines—he likes capturing the mundanity of everyday life and turning it into something spectacular, but he has never done the same thing with people. As far as Hange was aware, Levi had taken very few pictures of anybody at all.

And yet, she holds this pile in her hands, and there are plenty more pictures littering the drawer before her.

There is a strange feeling brewing on her as she stares at them. She had been so excited about moving away to study, so eager to explore the world beyond their quiet countryside home, that the reality of leaving had never truly sunk in. She feels it now though, acutely; a hollow ache in her chest that grows with each picture she flicks through.

Levi has been her shadow for as long as she can remember. There are few memories that he is not a part of, few moments that she can recall in which Levi was not by her side—he has been a constant for her. Something certain and dependable.

And from tomorrow, he will no longer be there.

Hange had known this. She had known it from the moment she had accepted her offer, and she had known it as they looked through her options for accommodation together, as they explored the local area through pictures and videos and maps online. She had known it as they had prepared her visa, organised her finances. Booked her flights. Every step of the way she had understood, logically, rationally, that studying abroad meant leaving Levi behind.

But the weight of it is only hitting her now. The reality of it is like a slap in the face, a punch in the gut—it leaves her shaken and breathless in the worst way.

From tomorrow, Levi won't be with her at all.

Her grip tightens on the photographs hard enough to wrinkle the glossy paper.

She had done a pretty good job of not getting too emotional about the whole thing. For the most part, Hange had been overwhelmed by her own excitement—there had been no time for sadness between all the loose ends she’d had to tie up in order to make the move a possibility. Now though, all that is left is to head to the airport and board her plane. No more distractions.

Hange doesn’t realise she is crying until the bedroom door opens again, and Levi steps into the room, coming to a sudden halt halfway over the threshold.

Hange can't tell if Levi's look of shock is because of the open drawer and the pictures still clutched in her hands, or the tear tracks on her cheeks. He stops dead in the open doorway, fingers still curled around the handle, and for a moment he stares at her with eyes wider than Hange has ever seen them, but then his brow dips low and his lip curls, and his grip tightens around the door handle. Hange holds the pile of photographs close to her chest.

She is expecting anger. She doesn't suppose she could blame him if he lost his temper with her, then. She has a terrible habit of bulldozing into everything, after all, and perhaps this was the one thing Levi had longed to keep secret from her. Her snooping, on top of his already sullen mood—perhaps this is the final straw.

But instead, he turns his face away, staring resolutely into the corner of the room. Starlight spills through the open window. Even in the thin, muted light, Hange can see a vibrant flush colouring the skin high on Levi's cheeks.

Hange sniffles, and wipes clumsily at her cheeks.

"I didn't have you pegged as a closet pervert, Levi," she says, waving the handful of pictures at him. Her voice comes cracked, and weaker than she'd hoped. Levi's knuckles turn white.

It's a funny thing, seeing Levi embarrassed. His emotional expression is usually limited to small twitches, here and there—a slight furrow of his brow, a wrinkle of his nose, a soft twitch of his lip. Hange can count on one hand the number of times she has seen his feelings show so completely. It's almost painful to witness.

"I don't mind," she says. Levi doesn't look at her. Hange looks down at the pile again. "They're nice."

Levi finally releases his death grip on the handle and pushes the door closed. His eyes are still downcast and his cheek is still cherry red, but he hasn't run away and he hasn't snapped at her (yet). Hange takes these things as good signs.

"I didn't know you took pictures of people," Hange says.

"I don't."

"Are you saying I'm not people, Levi?"

Levi lets out a disgruntled sigh. He crosses the room, and plucks the pile of pictures from Hange's hands. His cheeks are still pink, and his brows are still furrowed, but he has composed himself some.

“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re a creature. You’ve got snot all over your face.”

Hange laughs wetly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and rubbing the mess on her pants. Levi gives her a look of pure disgust, parking his hip against the edge of the desk beside her and skimming through a few of the pictures. There’s a curious expression on his face, a softness in his eyes that Hange isn’t used to seeing.

“Stalker,” she says. Levi kicks at the desk chair without looking up. “If you wanted a photoshoot, you could have asked.”

Levi scowls. He straightens the edges of the pictures with care, and sets them carefully on the desk. “If I wanted to take pictures of you posing, I would have asked.”

“Wanted to capture me in all my natural glory, huh?” Hange braces her elbows on the desk and rests her chin in both hands, grinning cheekily up at Levi. It must look ridiculous, with her watery eyes and the red point of her nose, but Levi isn't even looking at her to notice.

Levi says nothing. His gaze lingers on the pictures for a little longer, and the colour in his cheeks deepens. Hange nudges him with her elbow, smiling. The pictures are...sweet, in a way. There's something flattering about it. She slumps back in the chair, her smile wavering where a fresh wave of melancholy tugs at the edges of her lips.

“I’ll miss you, you know.” Hange’s voice cracks humiliatingly as she speaks. Levi looks over at her. Hange curses the wobble of her bottom lip and wipes at her eyes beneath her glasses. She isn’t expecting much; Levi is terrible at expressing feelings at the best of times, and so it’s more than surprising when, after a moment of consideration, he nods at her.

“Same.”

Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. Hange presses her fingers into her eyes, trying to stem the flow, ease the sting there. She doesn’t want to spend their last evening together crying, but now that the tears have begun, Hange can’t seem to stop them. A lump builds in her throat, aching beneath her tongue and she can feel her chin wobbling, lips pulling down at the corners. She sniffles pitifully, draws a shuddering breath.

“Oi…” Levi says, though he doesn’t sound angry, or even uncomfortable like she had expected. His tone is gentle. It rips a sob from her.

Hange feels him move closer. He jostles the front of the chair, and when she opens her eyes to look at him she finds him standing right in front of her, between chair and desk, looking at her with a furrowed brow. It’s different to his usual scowl—his brows are a little upturned in the middle, exposing some kinder emotion; something like worry, or concern.

Hange tilts forward until her forehead presses into his chest. Levi’s hand comes up quickly to the back of her head. His touch is familiar, comforting, and Hange cries a little harder when his fingers tunnel into her messy hair, cradling her against him.

She cries until she feels spent, sniffling and gulping empty air. Her fingers twist into the hem of Levi’s shirt as she composes herself, mumbling, “you’ll keep in touch, right? You won’t forget about me?”

Levi clicks his tongue at her. “Stupid,” he says. “As if you’d let me.”

“I’m serious.” She sits back and looks up at her. Her eyes are burning, raw and wet, and the skin of her cheeks stings from crying, but she looks at him with as much determination as ever and says, “call me. Every day.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not! Just once, every day. Even if it’s only five minutes.”

Levi flicks her between her brows. “You won’t have the time, dumbass.”

“I’ll make time.”

Levi scrutinizes her for a moment, then says, “I’ll text.”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

Levi curls his lip and pulls at a lock of her fringe, muttering, “brat. Why don’t you call me?”

“I will,” Hange says plainly. Levi’s eyes widen a fraction. “I’ll call as much as I can. But you need to call me too, okay? I wanna hear from you a lot.”

There is a long pause, and then Levi turns his eyes away. The light in the room is pale and muted, but it is just enough to highlight the pale flush gathering anew on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. It’s almost cute.

“Fine. I’ll call. Happy?”

Hange grins at him. “Very. And I’ll send you photos of everything, all the time.”

Levi leans down towards her, pinching her nose between his thumb and forefinger and giving her head a little shake. “On your shitty phone camera?”

Hange nods. She bats his hand away and cranes herself up into his space, smiling something wicked. “You’ll hate it. They’ll be all blurry and I’ll have my thumb in the corner of every picture.”

“Pest.”

“Lots of selfies, too. So you won’t forget what I look like.” Hange blindly swipes up a picture from the desk, holding it up between them in front of her mouth and nose. Between Levi dipping down into her space and Hange stretching up into his, they are so close that Levi has to cross his eyes to get a look at it. “Not that I think it’ll be a problem.”

He rolls his gaze up to look at her over the top of the photograph. Up close, Hange can see just how bright the blue of his eyes is, how dark his lashes are; she can see the shadows they cast on his cheeks, the deepening flush bruising the skin red. Levi has always been a pale thing, but now, Hange can see the smattering of light freckles across his nose, barely visible in the low light. He looks pretty. Her heart stutters in her chest at the sight.

Hange has never fully understood Levi’s drive to photograph everything. To preserve any given moment, bottle up every minute detail. She sort of understands it, then—it’d be nice, she thinks absently, to save this particular view for forever. The thought makes her face grow warm.

“I won’t forget.” Levi’s voice is quiet, caught somewhere between embarrassment and uncertainty. He sways closer, rocks back, hesitates. And then he leans down and lets his forehead drop against hers. Hange can feel the press of his nose against her own, separated only by the picture between them.

Hange is used to being close to him. She’s a clingy person by nature, always grabbing him and hugging him, smooshing her cheek against his or shoving her face into his hair, but she is always the one to initiate such contact. Levi is tactile, in his own way—small, non-invasive touches, his fingers on her wrist or his palm at her back, always delicate, understated.

To have Levi enter so wholly into her space like this is new. It’s nice. Hange finds herself feeling very, very thankful for the paper between them, for the urge to lean forward and kiss him comes unbidden, so suddenly she isn’t sure she’d be able to resist the impulse if there hadn’t been a barrier in her way.

“Is it my dazzling good looks?” she says, acutely embarrassed by how breathless she sounds. Levi makes a small, noncommittal noise. His fingers find hers where she’s holding the picture, gripping it and pulling it until it slips out from between them. For the smallest moment, Hange feels the skin of Levi’s nose against hers, and the warm puff of breath on her lips, and then Levi straightens up, flipping the picture for her to see it.

“I’ve looked at your ugly mug every day for long enough. Don’t think I’d forget it so easily.”

It’s a truly unflattering photograph. Hange has her head tipped back, laughing boisterously at some thing or another, with her eyes pinched closed and chocolate sauce smeared over her lips, a drop of cream stuck to the end of her nose. Hange is sure she has looked better, but the thing is—despite her state, the picture still isn’t bad. Hange can hear the lilt of her own laughter and feel the tacky syrup, savour the sweetness of the cream on her tongue. There’s something so...animated about it, about the way the light dances over her skin and in her hair, and the way the background blurs around her, drawing her into sharp focus.

It’s nice, in a strange, unreserved kind of way.

But she’s still a mess. Hange snatches it and slams it down on the desk, glowering up at Levi.

“Why would you take that,” she whines, petulant. “You’re supposed to take pictures of nice things!”

“Because it’s very...you,” He says, neatly slotting the pictures back into the drawer, and moving back to sit on the window. Hange follows, drops herself onto the ledge opposite him with a pout.

“What, disgusting?”

Levi shrugs. “Messy. But...not bad.”

“I’m supposed to take that as a compliment, I guess? That’s almost sweet coming from you, Levi.”

Levi scowls over at her. She dangles one leg back out the open window, dropping the other heavily into Levi’s lap. He adjusts it until he is more comfortable, his hand wrapping again around her ankle, but does not let go once he has settled. He keeps a hold of her, his fingers tracing thoughtless patterns on her skin. The space between them is warm, comfortable. Hange leans her head back and breathes it in—the peace, the quiet, the simple pleasure of spending a tender evening with her favourite person in the whole world.

It’s nice. A small, frightened part of her doesn’t want it to ever end.

**

Hange has been set up in her student apartment for three weeks when the package arrives.

Moving had been harder than she had anticipated. She’d accounted for common issues—problems with her visa, her plane tickets, and had checked multiple transport options from the airport to her accommodation in case problems arose—but she hadn’t put all that much thought into what would happen once she settled at her apartment.

Unpacking had been boring. Her roommates were nice enough, the studious, bookworm-y type, but unlike Hange they weren’t overly sociable. They kept mostly to themselves in their rooms, perfectly content with brief conversations in the kitchen before retiring again, and with classes still two weeks away, Hange was finding the lack of social interaction difficult. She had explored some, but the city was vast in a cluttered, claustrophobic way. Hange had always enjoyed travelling, and had talked relentlessly of every adventure she could take herself on in a whole new country and all the new places she could explore, so much so that it was almost embarrassing, the way she had found herself so unwilling to stray too far from her accommodation without a companion by her side.

She’d felt a little homesick in the first couple of days, lonely and isolated. She missed the small comforts of the country, things she hadn’t even realised she had taken for granted. Quiet nights. Star studded skies. Long grass and trees and the fresh, earthy smell on the breeze. The city was unbearably loud at times, and even when the wail of sirens or the beep of car horns quieted, there was an unidentifiable hum beneath it all that never ceased even for a moment.

She felt Levi’s absence most acutely. Hange had known she would, but she hadn’t been prepared for how much it would hurt to be apart. She felt silly for it—it was ridiculous, to miss her friend more than she missed her own family, even. But Levi’s presence had been more constant than anything else, back home, and without him, she felt like a small part of herself was missing.

He called, as promised. Once a day, though oftentimes it was very late in the night for him, and he sounded tired. If Hange were less selfish, she might tell him to get some sleep instead—but she missed him. Hearing from him was the best part of her day.

It was about an hour before their designated call time when the post came. Hange answers the bell with a frown, which only deepens when the delivery driver hands her the package.

She takes it into her room, settling cross legged on the bed and inspecting the mystery item. It's a decent size, like a large shoe box, wrapped neatly in brown paper with her address lettered in tidy, familiar handwriting in one corner. Hange’s stomach lurches—she’d have recognised the writing anywhere, but her suspicions are confirmed by the return address. Levi’s.

She rips into the paper quickly, snatching up her keys to tear through the tape on the top of the box. It is stuffed full with packing paper, an envelope with her name on it sitting on the top. Hange picks it up and with trembling fingers, she opens it and unfolds the short note inside.

Hange,

Sorry things have been kind of shitty. This stuff might help or it might make things worse, but I figure you can just throw it out if it’s no good. Or give it away. Whatever. I don’t even know if all of this shit will make it through customs, so if you get an empty box it’s not my fault.

I don’t get how you eat half this junk, but I hope it makes you feel better, anyway.

Look after yourself. Eat real food.

Levi

Hange presses the note to her chest, grinning. Her heart aches, but having Levi go to this much trouble for her...it feels nice. Knowing he is still thinking of her. She’d never have admitted it out loud, but Hange had been concerned that perhaps Levi would forget about her after all, without her there to pester him all the time.

She pulls out some of the packing paper, and smiles widely at the rest of the contents.

Levi had put together what Hange can only call a care package. There are packs of her favourite snacks and sweets, things she’d complained she hadn’t been able to find in stores here; crisps, chocolate, hard candy, little mini boxes of sickeningly sugary cereal. There are tea bags with blends Levi knows she likes, each neatly labelled with instructions on what temperature to brew at and how long for. Levi had also packed some of the soaps Hange likes, the ones he uses but she refuses to buy for herself. The lavender scent drifts up out of the box and Hange’s heart squeezes tight in her chest. There’s a shirt in there, too—Hange recognises it at once, as one of Levi’s old, worn tees, thin grey cotton that feels impossibly soft in her hands. It’s far too big for either of them, and had always been the go-to item Levi would chuck at her when she decided she was staying over for the night and had nothing to wear to bed. Hange pulls it on quickly, savouring the soft feel and the smell of it.

In the bottom of the box, there is another envelope. This one is thicker than the first, and Hange knows what it contains before she even opens it.

Photographs. A small pile of them, depicting places she and Levi had frequented from when they were children right up until this last year—her favourite part of the forest, where the trees thin out and the river pools at the foot of a small waterfall. The great, open fields, sometimes full of long grass, sometimes clipped short and striped with windrows. Kuchel’s cafe, with umbrellas raised to block the sun on the tables outside, or else warm and low-lit and cosy in the cold winter. Hange settles back on her pillows as she flicks through each picture, a soft smile on her face. Looking at the images of home hurts, but it isn’t a terrible pain—she longs for these old times and these familiar places, but each recovered memory makes her happy.

In Levi’s pictures she can vividly recall moments in each and every location. He works some kind of magic with a camera, to trigger so many sensory memories—the scent of freshly cut grass, the feel of hay, dry and sharp, poking into her back through her clothing, and the gentle trickle of the river water, the splash of it as it runs over the falls, the feel of it cool on her skin. The tangy zest of fresh-pressed orange juice in the cafe, peach fuzz on her lips and the soft flesh of ripe fruit bursting between her teeth, sticky nectar coating her fingers.

Hange looks at each picture in turn, until she reaches the bottom of the pile, and there she stops abruptly, eyes widening at the last photograph Levi has packed for her.

It is one of Hange, taken in the window of Levi’s bedroom. She was looking out at the night sky, her elbow braced on her bent  knee, chin in her palm, a small smile lifting the corner of her mouth. The starlight haloed her, shining from her hair and illuminating the jut of her chin, the curve of her nose and the slope of her brow. Behind her, Levi had captured the bright glow of the stars like jewels on a deep velvet canvas. She looked peaceful. Happy. For lack of a better word, beautiful.

Hange grins widely. Her eyes sting and her throat aches, but the picture—the whole box, really—makes her happier than she's felt in weeks. She brews her favourite cup of tea from the blends Levi had sent her and settles into the corner of her bed, lifting her phone to snap a quick selfie. She sends it to Levi, complete with a caption: thank you for my presents 😊 all ready for your call!

Levi responds almost immediately, first with a simple you're welcome. And then, after a minute, you look good. Speak to you soon.

Hange sinks deeper into the cushions, cradling her tea close to her face, masking the pleased flush on her cheeks with the heat from the steam.

**

Hange keeps him longer than usual, today.

There is a simmering warmth in her stomach as she listens to Levi's voice over the line. It comes tinny through the speakers, low and rough in the late hour, and his dark, grainy image looks tired, lamp light casting him half in shadow. They talk of everything and nothing, same as always—Levi tells her about his day, about the cafe and Kuchel, and Hange pouts as she tells him how little progress she is making in befriending her new housemates. Levi never voices any concern for her aloud, but Hange can sense it in the dip of his brows as she talks. She gives him a genuine smile when she reassures him that classes will start soon, and she's confident she will settle better after that.

Levi seems reluctant to leave, but after a little over an hour of aimless, comfortable chatter, he is yawning and blinking heavily, the lower half of his face nuzzled into his pillow. In the end, Hange makes up some watery excuse about visiting the coast while the sun is still high, if only to let him get some sleep.

"Sure. Have fun."

"I will! Sleep well, Levi."

Levi hums. The view shifts, blurry and indistinct, the mic muffled by the rustle of sheets, and when everything settles he is laying on his side, fringe mussed and falling over his eyes. He covers another long yawn with his fist. "I will."

"You'll call tomorrow?"

Levi rolls his tired eyes, but the corner of his mouth pulls up in a fraction of a smile. "Sure."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Hange grins. Levi watches her for a long moment, eyes scanning over her face. Then he holds up a hand in a tired wave. "Night, Hange."

"Night."

Hange stares at the screen for too long when the call ends. That terribly selfish part of her would have loved to keep his company for the rest of the day. Maybe, with a little travel sized Levi in the palm of her hand, she'd have been brave enough to explore some more, enthused about all the new things to see with somebody to share them with.

Sighing, Hange drops her phone to the desk and stands from the bed, stretching. There are still things she can do—she has plenty of recommended reading to get through, a small mountain of books at her disposal, and she has mapped the route to her campus often enough that she isn't feeling too overwhelmed by the prospect of the journey.

As she heads for the door, Hange notices something on the floor beside the bed. A neat, rectangular piece of paper; one of the photographs Levi had sent her, laying face down on the ground.

She picks it up again and brings the paper close to her face. Levi had written something on the back of it in small, quick letters, less tidy than his usual practiced script, as though he’d scribbled it as an afterthought, or else that he wasn’t sure he really wanted her to read it.

There is a date, the same night she had found Levi’s secret photo stash, followed by Hange’s name, and the location of the shot. And beneath that Levi had scrawled a few words. Hange squints to read them, and then her eyes grow wide, blinking owlishly down at the note. Her heart swells almost painfully and something solid balloons within her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Her lips tremble into a smile as she props the picture carefully on the bedside table.

The day is still young. Hange brews herself another cup of Levi’s tea and settles on the bed with one of her books, content to spend the next few hours reading—though she finds it strangely difficult to focus, with the words Levi had written on the back of the photograph swirling round and round in her head. Hange doubts they will leave her any time soon. They left her feeling more homesick than ever, but there is a soft, giddy kind of comfort in them all the same. It's a feeling that Hange will savour for as long as she possibly can.

It's weird here without you. Come home again soon x

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

You are Malleus, grandson of the Witch of Thorns and heir to her kingdom. From nearly the moment of your hatching, you are revered - and feared. Your magical abilities present themselves at a young age and everyone declares that you will be the greatest wizard to walk the world by the time you come of age. Though you are naught compared to your grandmother, it doesn't matter. You never see her, and hardly see your parents.

Your care and tutelage is largely the responsibility of the courtiers and servants. Your favorite is a man with sharp teeth, who often goes into the human realm disguised as a round-faced young boy so that the humans will be less inclined to run away from him in terror. The others whisper that he was once a great warrior who killed many humans and even other fae in the name of the Witch of Thorns - not to you, personally, because you are the prince who cannot be seen conversing with those who are beneath you - but you come to understand that even though Lilia is indeed a mighty warrior and wizard, he is also very eccentric and funny and openhearted. He pats your head - right between the pointed black horns that terrify so many - and tells you that you have done a good job today, and would you like to have tea and snacks later? He brings you trinkets and toys and curiosities from the human villages. On your one hundredth birthday, he brings you an entire cake and tells you to eat it - by yourself. You do; you are sick for three days, and vow never to do something like that again. Lilia laughs himself silly while he nurses you back to health. Sometimes he disappears for long periods of time, and nobody asks where he is, or tells you where he's gone, and when Lilia returns, he tells you that it was a simple errand gone awry.

You are not naive, even as a child, and indeed, nobody spares details when it comes to gruesome history, the high cost of magic. Again and again you are reminded what became of your grandmother - gone mad pierced, pierced with a magic sword, stripped of her powers, reduced to a near-humanlike state without horns or wings - this was the price she paid for power. The humans cannot be trusted, your tutors say, because they are weak and feeble in body and mind. They will not understand you. They will hate and fear you.

So you learn, in addition to spellcasting and histories and sciences and politics, how to speak in such a way that nobody can tell what you are really thinking. You learn to make a simple set of expressions which you can call upon whenever it is necessary. You learn to choose your words very carefully. The Valley of Thorns is a dangerous place, even for princes, even for mighty wizards like you.

But Lilia tells you about the villages beyond the Valley of Thorns. Places which have days upon days of pure, warm sunshine and fields of flowers. Trees that blossom in the spring, and turn crimson in the fall. Snowcapped mountains, great golden deserts. One day, you have dinner together and Lilia speaks endlessly about the sea. The human world sounds nice, you say, idly to disguise your fascination, perhaps it would be useful to go and visit it one day. As part of your education, naturally.

Lilia says, "Perhaps, one day." And smiles.

Your kind grow slowly, and you are separated from the humans, so you are not properly aware of time passing until one day, Lilia goes away on another one of his errands. It’s a short errand, and when he comes back, he shows you the strangest thing yet.

“A human?”

“A baby,” Lilia confirms, adjusting the bundle against his chest like it’s no strange thing. You stare, amazed and confused. “I’m going to be taking care of him from now on.”

There were no further explanations. Perhaps later, Lilia would tell you the story, but not today. You bite down a protest. There are no humans in the Valley of Thorns. Even someone as esteemed as Lilia would face consequences for bringing one here, even if it was a harmless child.

“Look.” Lilia holds out the bundle. “See how small he is?”

He hands you the infant and positions your arms correctly so that you are supporting it’s head, cradling it against your chest. It is indeed tiny, and squishy, and very, very pale. Were humans meant to be so pale? Was it sick? You frown down, sniffing for any hint of poison or disease. The infant smells strongly acrid, the way swords did when they passed through the copperfires of the Valley. But underneath that, was something soft and muted. Human. Innocent.

You look up at Lilia, confused. He smiles back, undeniably pleased, though you are not sure what you’ve done to make him smile like that.

“He has no name,” said Lilia. “Would you like to name him, your highness?”

You hand the bundle back to Lilia, but as your hands fall away, you touch one finger to the infant’s cheek. The human baby whimpers but does not wake. You brush the threads of pale hair on his head.

“Silver,” you say.

“A fine name,” says Lilia, and smiles.

Now, for the first time, you understand the passage of time. Silver grows very quickly - far more quickly than you did. It is not long before you two look to be nearly the same age. Lilia is mostly responsible for Silver’s care, just as he was once responsible for you. But you find yourself wanting to help as well. Your duties as prince have not changed, but now you have a playmate as well, one who changes rapidly. Silver has magic of his own, and since he was accepted by the prince, no one (openly) questions Sliver’s right to be there. It is frustrating sometimes, yes, but mostly, it is interesting. Silver is not much of a troublemaker and isn’t prone to tantrums. He sleeps quickly and easily. Too quickly, too easily. One day, he nearly falls into a lake and drowns after he appeared to fall asleep while standing up. Thirteen years had passed since Lilia took him in.

While Silver rests - properly, having been healed - Lilia informs you that the human child is cursed, and his parents abandoned him at the edge of the valley, because they could not bear to raise him.

“Do you know,” said Lilia, “that humans often do such things? If they believe the child is sick or not of their own, they will bring them to us. There are many bones on the edge of the valley.”

You find it in yourself to be horrified, and angry. “Why do humans do such things?”

“Because they fear what they do not understand. However, there are also many like Silver. Silver is a good boy. You have done a fine job caring for him, your Highness.”

You look away. “I did nothing.”

“Be that as it may,” says Lilia, smiling. “I am sure that he will work hard to repay you.”

This is indeed true. Silver requests to join the royal guard and begin training as soon as he wakes from his slumber. You cannot fathom why Silver would do such a thing - since you still have not done anything useful for him, at least not in the way Lilia has - but Lilia happily agrees and takes a supervising position in the royal guard, so that he may continuing assisting in Silver’s growth. Many of the fellow trainees are uneasy and displeased with the idea of a human in their ranks. None is more upset than a youthful fae by the name of Sebek, who took his displeasure one step further and complained directly to Lilia himself.

In response, Lilia invites Sebek over for dinner.

You watch, fascinated and amused, as Sebek struggles through simple conversations. It seems that being in the presence of royalty is uniquely overwhelming for him. His fair skin goes scarlet at one point, when you ask him to please demonstrate what you have learned.

“I am no great wizard!” says Sebek, loudly. His loud voice seemed to be a defense mechanism against his embarrassment. “But I assure you that once I have completed my training and education, I shall become a guardsman fit to stand at your side, young Master!”

Sebek is funny. You like him; you haven’t talked to very many fae-kind who are close to you in age. You ask where he is going to school.

Night Raven College. Of course, you know if it. It’s the school that your grandmother helped build, the place she graciously lent her strengths in order to educate a new generation of young wizards.

“Of course!” says Sebek, proudly, when you note this. “There is no finer place for one who was raised in the Valley of Thorns! I am most honored to be attending!”

Lilia chuckles. “It is a school mostly for human and mortal students, but I’m glad to see you’re so excited about your future. You still have some time before you send admission paperwork, yes?”

Sebek says, “Four years, ten months, and nine days precisely!”

An idea sparks in you when you hear this. “Oh? Is that so?”

Silver remarks, “Yeah, I was thinking about applying when I’m old enough. I think it’ll be useful for me to get training there. They say they’ve got some of the best alchemists in the world working there.”

And Silver as well? Now that was interesting. The conversation continues, and moves away.

Two days later, you ask for permission to apply to Night Raven College.

[fishoutofcamelot]

Zombie symbolism in media? Body snatchers? That sounds extremely interesting 👀👀👀

OOOOOOOOOOH ARE YOU READY FOR ME TO RANT? CUZ I’M GONNA RANT BABY. YALL WANNA SEE HOW HARD I CAN HYPERFIXATE???

I’ll leave my ramblings under the cut.

The Bodysnatchers thing is a bit quicker to explain so I’ll start with that. Basically, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1956, about a small town where the people are slowly but surely replaced and replicated by emotionless hivemind pod aliens. It was a pretty obvious metaphor for the red scare and America’s fear of the ‘growing threat of communism’ invading their society. A communist could look like anyone and be anyone, after all.

Naturally, the bodysnatcher concept got rebooted a few times - Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993), and The Invasion (2007), just off the top of my head. You’re all probably very familiar with the core concept: people are slowly being replaced by foreign duplicates. 

But while the monster has remained roughly the same, the theme has not. In earlier renditions, Bodysnatchers symbolized communism. But in later renditions, the narratives shifted to symbolize freedom of expression and individualism - that is, people’s ability to express and think for themselves being taken away. That’s because freedom of thought/individuality is a much more pressing threat on our minds in the current climate. Most people aren’t scared of communists anymore, but we are scared of having our free will taken away from us. 

The best indicator of the era in which a story is created is its villain. Stories written circa 9/11 have villains that are foreign, because foreign terrorism was a big fear in the early 2000s. In the past, villains were black people, because white people were racist (and still are, but more blatantly so in the past). 

Alright, now for the fun part.

ZOMBIES

Although the concept has existed in Haitian voodooism for ages, the first instance of zombies in western fiction was a book called The Magic Island written by William Seabrook in 1929. Basically ol Seabrook took a trip to Haiti and saw all the slaves acting tired and ‘brutish’ and, having learned about the voodoo ‘zombi’, believed the slaves were zombies, and thus put them in his book.

The first zombie story in film was actually an adaptation of Seabrook’s accounts, called White Zombie (1932). It was about a couple who takes a trip to Haiti, only for the woman to be turned into a zombie and enchanted into being a Haitian’s romantic slave. SUPER racist, if you couldn’t tell, but not only does it reflect the state of entertainment of the era - Dracula and Frankenstein had both been released around the same time - but it also reflects American cultural fears. That is, the fear of white people losing their authoritative control over the world. White fright.

Naturally, the box office success of White Zombie inspired a whole bunch of other remakes and spinoffs in the newly minted zombie genre, most of them taking a similar Haitian voodoo approach. Within a decade, zombies had grown from an obscure bit of Haitian lore to a fully integrated part of American pop culture. Movies, songs, books, cocktails, etc. 

But this was also a time for WWII to roll around and, much like the Bodysnatchers, zombie symbolism evolved to fit the times. Now zombies experienced a shift from white fright and ethnic spirituality to something a bit more secular. Now they were a product of foreign science created to perpetuate warmongering schemes. In King of Zombies (1941), a spy uses zombies to try and force a US Admiral to share his secrets. And Steve Sekely’s Revenge of the Zombies (1943) became the first instance of Nazi zombies. 

Then came the atom bomb, and once more zombie symbolism shifted to fears of radiation and communism. The most on-the-nose example of this is Creature With the Atom Brain (1955).

Then came the Vietnam War, and people started fearing an uncontrollable, unconscionable military. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), zombies were caused by radiation from a space probe, combining both nuclear and space-race motifs, as well as a harsh government that would cause you just as much problems as the zombies. One could argue that the zombies in the Living Dead series represent military soldiers, or more likely the military-industrial complex as a whole, which is presented as mindless in its pursuit of violence.

The Living Dead series also introduced a new mainstay to the genre: guns. Military stuff. Fighting. Battle. And that became a major milestone in the evolution of zombie representation in media. This was only exacerbated by the political climate of the time. In the latter half of the 20th century, there were a lot of wars. Vietnam, Korea, Arab Spring, Bay of Pigs, America’s various invasions and attacks on Middle Eastern nations, etc. Naturally the public were concerned by all this fighting, and the nature of zombie fiction very much evolved to match this.

But the late 1900s weren’t just a place of war. They were also a place of increasing economic disparity and inequal wealth distribution. In the 70s and 80s, the wage gap widened astronomically, while consumerism remained steadily on the rise. And so, zombies symbolized something else: late-stage capitalism. Specifically, capitalist consumption - mindless consumption. For example, in Dawn of the Dead (1978), zombies attack a mall, and with it the hedonistic lifestyles of the people taking refuge there. This iteration props up zombies as the consumers, and it is their mindless consumption that causes the fall of the very system they were overindulging in.

Then there was the AIDS scare, and the zombie threat evolved to match something that we can all vibe with here in the time of COVID: contagion. Now the zombie condition was something you could get infected with and turn into. In a video game called Resident Evil (1996), the main antagonist was a pharmaceutical company called the Umbrella Corporation that’s been experimenting with viruses and bio-warfare. In 28 Days Later (2002), viral apes escape a research lab and infect an unsuspecting public.

Nowadays, zombies are a means of expressing our contemporary fears of apocalypse. It’s no secret that the world has been on the brink for a while now, and everyone is waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. Post-apocalypse zombie movies act as simultaneous male power fantasy, expression of contemporary cynicism, an expression of war sentiments, and a product of the zombie’s storied symbolic history. People are no longer able to trust the government, and in many ways people have a hard time trusting each other, and this manifests as an every-man-for-himself survivalist narrative. 

So why have zombies endured for so long, despite changing so much? Why are we so fascinated by them? Well, many say that it’s because zombies are a way for us to express our fears of apocalypse. Communism, radiation, contagion - these are all threats to the country’s wellbeing. Some might even say that zombies represent a threat to conversative America/white nationalism, what with the inclusion of voodooism, foreign entities, and late-stage capitalism being viewed as enemies.

Personally, I might partly agree with the conservative America thing, but I don’t think zombies exist to project our fears onto. That’s just how villains and monsters work in general. In fiction, the conflict’s stakes don’t hit home unless the villain is intimidating. The hero has to fight something scary for us to be invested in their struggles. But the definition of what makes something scary is different for every different generation and social group. Maybe that scary thing is foreign invaders, or illness, or losing a loved one, or a government takeover. As such, the stories of that era mold to fit the fears of that era. It’s why we see so many government conspiracy thrillers right now; it’s because we’re all afraid of the government and what it can do to us.

So if projecting societal fears onto the story’s villain is a commonplace practice, then what makes zombies so special? Why have they lasted so long and so prevalently? I would argue it’s because the concept of a zombie, at its core, plays at a long-standing American ideal: freedom.

Why did people migrate to the New World? Religious freedom. Why did we start the Revolutionary War and become our own country? Freedom from England’s authority. Why was the Civil War a thing? The south wanted freedom from the north - and in a remarkable display of irony, they wanted to use that freedom to oppress black people. Why are we so obsessed with capitalism? Economic freedom.

Look back at each symbolic iteration of the zombie. What’s the common thread? In the 20s/30s, it was about white fright. The fear that black people could rise up against them and take away their perceived ‘freedom’ (which was really just tyrannical authority, but whatever). During WWII, it was about foreign threats coming in and taking over our country. During Vietnam, it became about our military spinning out of control and hecking things up for the rest of us. In the 80s/90s, it was about capitalism turning us into mindless consumers. Then it was about plagues and hiveminds and the collapse of society as a whole, destroying everything we thought we knew and throwing our whole lives into disarray. In just about every symbolic iteration, freedom and power have been major elements under threat.

And even deeper than that, what is a zombie? It’s someone who, for whatever reason, is a mindlessly violent creature that cannot think beyond base animal impulses and a desire to consume flesh. You can no longer think for yourself. Everything that made you who you are is gone.

Becoming a zombie is the ultimate violation of someone’s personal freedom. And that terrifies Americans.

Although an interesting - and concerning - phenomenon is this new wave of wish fulfillment zombie-ism. You know, the gun-toting action movie hero who has the personality of soggy toast and a jaw so chiseled it could decapitate the undead. That violent survivalist notion of living off the grid and being a total badass all the while. It speaks to men who, for whatever reason, feel their masculinity and dominance is under threat. So they project their desires to compensate for their lack of masculine control onto zombie fiction, granting them personal freedom from obligations and expectations (and feminism) to live out their solo macho fantasies by engaging in low- to no-consequence combat. And in doing so, completely disregarding the fact that those same zombies were once people who cruelly had their freedom of self ripped away from them. Gaining their own freedom through the persecution of others (zombies). And if that doesn’t sum up the white conservative experience, I don’t know what does.

So yeah. That’s zombies, y’all.

Thanks for the ask!

[mlek13]

Spring, Year 6: University

My university lot is getting too crowded, so I decided to start a second lot.  I’m thinking of this as married student housing.  They aren’t technically married couples, but the sims I moved in to this household are committed couples who don’t seem to be romantically interested in anyone else. 

So far the residents of this household are Leila Cade, Colette Burgos, Princess Ruby, and Aloysius Durden. 

I feel bad isolating them from the others, which might prevent them from forming important connections, but the household size starts to get unmanageable.  I also wish I had moved more sims in with them initially.  I know I will need to move more sims in during upcoming rotations or find another way to split them into groups.

I had some issues with my university lots this season.  It turns out Leila got the warning that she was supposed to attend her final while I was moving them out.  She ended up on academic probation and failed out, so I had to cheat her back in as a student.

I had in my excel file that Rona and Ruby were supposed to graduate earlier in this round than they did.  Either I miscounted or their timers were off (they seem to be out of sync with each other too.)  I seem to have to adjust comings and goings for a lot of my sims lately.  Colette is one who seemed to be ahead or behind other sims her age.  That might also have to do with what time a sim is born and the fact that aging that happens at 6 p.m. while I’m keeping track of things by the day of the season which changes between 2 and 9 a.m.

I’m very annoyed that I had to replay the beginning of my university round twice because my game crashed.  (It was my fault.  I was messing with the semester tester and clicked the wrong option.)  Things were going really well the first time around.  Sims were dating, falling in love, and rolling engagement wants.  I was excited that they were pairing up so nicely.

The second time around I noticed the double bed was glitched and replaced it, which may have been a mistake.  I think relationships were building better when they weren’t able to woohoo.

At the start of the season (both times) Aisha Cade and twins, Samira and Sadie Burgos, are the newest students on campus.

Rona’s daughter, Ramona has a birthday.  (I feel like this child is going to be back here as a student before I know it.)  She really looks like her late grandfather, Ronan.

You can put the baby down before practicing your speech, Samson.

(I’m going to borrow some of the pics I took before the crash, since I don’t have as many after.  Although my couples seemed less settled the second time, I think they still had some romance going on in the background.)

Silas Cade and Sadie Burgos are getting pretty serious. I think there might be marriage in the future.

Aisha Cade and Samira Burgos were going strong before university and are still very much in love. 

(Not a good angle but) Leonardo and Lucinda are also a cute, budding couple.

Samson wasn’t really clicking with any of the sims in the house, but he may have finally found love with a townie named Rebecca.

Unfortunately, Armando has not done well in his classes and gets expelled.  I’ll have him wait in the sim bin until it’s time for him to move back to the main hood.

Near the end of the season, it’s time for Miranda and Chastity to join the university household.

I have had some problems with Samira.  Her college timer should be synced with her sister’s (and Aisha’s) but a couple of times I got a message that she missed her final long before it was due to start and she falsely ended up on academic probation and expelled, so I had to cheat her back in.  University might not work out for her.  Maybe being brought back from the dead has caused some unexplained issues.

Lucinda, who is pregnant, goes into hunger desperation. As you can see, there is food right there.  I promise I directed her long before this to go eat.

Leonardo, her lover, and the father of her unborn child, pleads to save her life, but the Reaper refuses.  :(  I knew I shouldn’t have fixed that glitchy double bed.

I had to do some checking while making this post to try and straighten out ages and who is supposed to graduate when.  My records are a little off, but I decided Rona and Ruby are supposed to graduate at the end of this season and move back to the main kingdom at the beginning of the summer.

Ruby finished with a 2.2 in history.  (And had an interesting choice of outfit as a adult.)

(I moved Rona and Ramona temporarily into this lot to take her final.)  She finished with a 1.7 in political science. 

I think she stole that outfit from her sister’s closet, but it is a different color, but it matches what Ruby is wearing now.  I guess as twins, now they want to dress alike?  Since they are twins, I’m not sure who should inherit their mother’s house.  Maybe I will just move them all in together.

[mynameisdreartblog]

Structural Isomers 3

Libra: 2,2,4-Trimethylhexane. <The familiar bell to mark someone’s entrance into the library chimes again. Yellen, after rubbing her magnifier for a comically lung time, peers up to greet whoever’s there. However, a striking intuition splashes her mind, which results in an aftershock of total disgust that needs to be disguised for the sake of etiquette> Oh, hello… you. «Good morning, granny. So, what’s new here?» <Yellen thinks to herself:> Goddamn Inez again. And here I was thinking he’d never come back! «Still holding onto all these worthless texts? You of all people should know by now that there’s nothing valuable here… Actually, I don’t want to be that harsh, but still: Necessity calls!» These works still hold considerable weight to our modern world, young man. «Keep up with the times; we’re on the edge of it being ‘postmodern’ now, which means everything here will become even more antiquated.» <Yellen thinks to herself again> Ugh, he’s put on this completely fabricated hatred of literature to justify his intentions of buying up the property here. So shallow, but at least I’m getting closer to knowing who’s paying him. The transition into a new world makes preserving older knowledge all the more worth it in my eyes <Yellen grips her wrinkly flesh around her pens.> «Heh, you seem aggravated by my progressivism.» Yes, because you’re violating one of the rules <Yellen pulls out a pristine paper, in which the second rule states “no political discussion”> I’d hate to be rude, but I think you’re overthinking and making up a ‘political issue’ again, and that leads you to discussing it loudly on the premises. That isn’t tolerated, as the politics (like everything else contentious) remains in the books here. «Oh, but the politics are happening right outside as we speak!» <Arduous and nonsensical conversation can be heard mumbling through the front door. Promptly, Yellen claps her hands once and the door becomes reinforced with sound-proofing, intimidating Inez> But this space is a different world with different rules, dear Inez.

Cancer: 3,3,4-Trimethylhexane. Time for a flashback way back in medical school. You know what you remember the most fondly? <Springe takes a puff from his cigarette: An almost disparate drag. He holds on this moment for dramatic effect and resumes speaking> Learning how to treat patients. <The lounge around him stares silently, thinking how out of character this was for him, and they were waiting for the inevitable fake-out> I’m serious, guys. Normally, I’m not an empathetic person, which makes you wonder why I got into this, but those instructors really beat those flaws out of you. They take the flaw you had before and make it into an entirely different character flaw, actually. «You went from not caring to caring too much?» Precisely, Luna! Passion took its cold, meaty hands and frightened the criminal in me. «How do you know my-» In anatomical dissection, the words of “you’re special because you’re human” kept banging in my head. It made me realize the place I was in while slicing through the fetus’s flesh. [,] Oh, it’s in my head with a permanent residence. <Luna mumbles to herself> «He’s way too cheery today; he must be manic again.» “You have quite a lot of sympathy for that pig you just dissected, Springe. We have all of those bones to protect that which is most vulnerable inside of us: The gross and mushy stuff.” To which I responded with “shouldn’t you be describing this in a more professional manner?” But I was the fool there, <Springe takes another puff from his cigarette> and the teacher said “toss it in with the rest.” That’s when they threw everything into a biowaste basket and I automatically passed that assignment. Thank God it’s that wonderful education that stopped me from becoming a shrink! <A nurse interrupts Springe, stating he has a patient to see> …What’s their history of cleft palate surgery again? Let me see here… Oh poor thing, it’s her first time.

Virgo: Nonane. It's blah, like my personality. «What about this one?» No, you don't understand; I want something deliberately tacky that we can all wear through the parking garage. «Bluma, there’s nobody here to see us; why do you care how we look?» It’s about how we look to ourselves! «So, you want to wear something you dislike? …I don’t get you.» I’m an expression you can never solve, Jouka. «Ah… Science has enabled man to split the atom and explore the cosmos, so one day, we’ll be able to solve the mystery of you.» Maybe you can solve this mystery! <Bluma playfully lifts the ephemeral capes from her studded leather boots, stomping them to the ground in a way to assert spatial dominance and showcase their fragrance> «H-holy shit! Where have you been keeping these, girl?» They’re imports. <Jouka ogles her boots while thoughts of how their previous goth fits were never truly complete because they didn’t feature boots like these. A mix of envy and pride fills their heart.> «Imports: How much did you pay?» Well- <skateboards can be heard echoing from the top of the parking garage: They indicate sharp and swift movement alongside a disregard for the physics of the structure> We’ve got company. «Ah yes, those skateboarders must be a threat.» No time for sarcasm, Jouka. «…I’m in agreement with you.» <Crumpled cans fall from the top floor, landing with a light grace and a hollow pang> They’re already attacking <Bluma quickly pulls out a retractable baton hidden in the new boots, making an intimidating clang.> Oh shit, I didn’t think you took that as that big a threat. «You agreed, didn’t you?» To a degree, hon. <Brandishing her boots once more, Bluma readies her legs to begin rushing into the building> «What’s the holdup: Are you not confident enough?» You let your worldview get shaken by what the books say: How are you more confident than me? <The cans from before explode violently, leaving a hazy smoke cloud in their wake. What happened to the two?>

Sagittarius: 2,2,5-Trimethylhexane. <Rossouw wipes the sweat off her brow and tries to avoid the pain she’s receiving from both the sunlight-induced headache and the memories plaguing her thoughts> Two parallel assholes in my life: Unbelievable! After everything I’ve been through, I’m at the end of the road again. I keep going at it, thinking things will change this time in an epic twist of fate, but fate always wins! The songs I sing, the art I make: All things I do to spiritually reinforce a positive ending get flipped on me. The mystics tell me it’s to learn a lesson, but I think that’s what they say to soothe the suffering. <Rossouw keeps monologuing to herself in a self-repeating way, constantly wondering what went wrong. This continues until she’s at the brink of realizing something life-changing, only for it to be interrupted by someone asking for directions> «Hey, do you know where these roads diverge?» <Rossouw communicates almost automatically> Yeah, they diverge about four miles down from this station. <Afterwards, she is utterly dazed at the fact that talking with this white man in a jeep completely erased her newfound knowledge. A great insecurity overtakes her, feeling like the opportunity has already left her, she tries to compensate immediately for the otherwise profound grief this would bring her> Hey, do you want to hear a story? «I got five more days here, so go ahead.» During my time where I was stationed in Uganda, I met a petite woman: She looked like someone suffering immense grief, like a massive opportunity was taken from her. I approached her and asked what was wrong, and she replied “my daughter’s gone: They took my daughter away from me!” I was immediately worried and replied “was it the terrorists?” And she replied “no, it was the American couple who came and took my baby!” Turns out, their child was stolen from them because of international adoption policies. That's fucked up, huh? «Uh, yeah. You know, I was expecting a more… wholesome story?» Right, right. I’m so sorry, holy shit. «Thanks, goodbye.»

[malkaviansyndromes]

i was inspired by quimton so i did the 93 question meme for lestat :)

1. What is their gender? male, but like, gay rat male

2. What is their sexuality? men

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames? it’s from iwtv, which he never read, he was an edgy goth weirdo and thought it sounded cool. erin calls him a rat but he doesn't have any actual nicknames

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger?  Which sibling are they the closest with? he doesn't have any siblings but will try to adopt younger friends as "siblings" 5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives? when he was alive his relationship with his dad was...Not great. aside from his mom he didn't talk to his family. his sire is dead lol

6. What would they give their life for? his friends or husband probably, if it had to be anything

7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With who? How did they meet? yes! he's in a relationship with märchen and has been for a while; mär found him shortly after his embrace and made sure he was accepted into the camarilla rather than getting axed for being an illegitimate fledgling.

8. What do they believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? he has no idea and doesn't really want to think about it

9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal? probably some sort of hideous tie between black and pastel pink. he likes cats

10. What are some of their talents/skills? he can draw, and also has a decent head for computer science and math

11. If they could make a mark on history, what would they like it to be? he would want to either be part of some massive political change to keep people from suffering, or solve the problem of quantum gravity

12. How old are they? When is their birthday? 23! he was born on march 5th

13. What do they do for fun? video games. eat a bunch. annoy his friends. he's a simple man

14. What is their favorite food? How often do they get to eat it? cheeseburgers...his husband lets him eat food any time he wants even though it's disgusting and bad for him since he's a vampire

15. What was something their parents taught them? nothing really specific beyond to be the terrible way he is now

16. Are they religious? sort of?

17. Where were they born? illinois unfortunately

18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages? english is his native language. he took french in high school and lost most of it, and has tried to pick up a little german from his husband and online. he knows a pitiful amount of japanese but only out loud, surprisingly not from anime so much as listening to tons of japanese music with subs

19. What is their occupation? idiot. he does odd jobs for the anarchs and helps with their computer shit sometimes

20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them? nope

Personality: 21. What is their favorite thing about their personality? that he cares about shit

22. What is their least favorite thing about their personality? he has bad self esteem so a lot of things

23. Do they get lonely easily? YES but he's also a bit of a hermit socially

24. Do you know their MBTI type? no i used to

25. What is their biggest flaw? probably having a bad temper and making snap judgements

26. Are they aware of their flaws? So Much All The Time

27. What is their biggest strength? he's pretty empathetic

28. Are they aware of their strengths? he denies they exist

29. How would they describe their own personality? "awful little animal"

30. When frightened, will they resort to “fight” or “flight”? freeze probably, but flight if that doesn't count as an answer

31. Does this character ever put somebody else’s needs before their own? Who do they do this for? How often do they do this? yes, for pretty much anyone he likes even a little, and very very frequently

32. What is their self esteem like? BAD

33. What is their biggest fear? How would they react to having to face it? losing the people he cares about. he would Give Up On Life if he was alone

34. How easily do they trust others with their secrets? With their lives? weird little guy who is extremely paranoid but simultaneously too trusting. he tries to ignore his misgivings to give people the benefit of the doubt, doesn't always end well for him

35. What is the easiest way to annoy them? don't listen to anything he says. if he's being ignored in a conversation he will be furious

36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous. "penis music," basically any joke about communism, horribly deep fried memes

37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it? he says it easily and a often, but not without meaning it unless he wants to feel guilty enough to vomit

38. What do others admire most about their personality? erin says "his friendly personality and jokes and level head when it comes to important things"

39. What does their happily ever after look like? having a normal life without being afraid of poverty or being alone

40. Who do they trust most? Is that trust mutual? probably erin and märchen, so yes

Physical Profile: 41. What does their laugh sound like? Do they snort when they laugh? How often do they laugh? he cackles like an awful little witch every once in a while

42. What is their favorite thing about their physical appearance? his anime heterochromia

43. What is their least favorite thing about their physical appearance? looking like he's 12

44. Do they have any scars? If so, what are the stories behind those scars? he has a scar on his eyebrow from when he was 2 and tried to climb a bookshelf and it fell on him and he had to get stitches. also....some less funny ones

45. How would they describe their own appearance? "bad" or “sexy” no in between

46. How easily can they express emotions? How easily can they hide emotions? he can express them well but hates to do it. he is way too good at hiding them

47.  What’s their pain tolerance like? he's a little wimpy but trudges through it

48. Do they have any tattoos? What are the stories behind those tattoos? no tats!

49. Do they have any piercings? just his ears

50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing? we would both call it "hot topic dumpster dive"

51. What is their height? Weight? 5'0", haha that's secret

52. What is their body type? Are they muscular, chubby, skinny, etc? a little round and chubby

53. What is their hair color? Eye color? Skin tone? his hair is actually a light golden brown but he dyes it black. his eyes are grey-blue (he doesn't always like the color) but one of them is red now due to damage during his embrace. he's pale as fuck

54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle? current hairstyle is a very short half-buzzed kind of thing, which he likes best. he's also had it normal short. up until he was like 16 or 17 he had it very long

55. What is their alcohol tolerance like? What kind of drunk are they? How bad are their hangovers? PITIFUL, he's an extreme lightweight. cuddly drunk or sad drunk. his threshhold for hangovers is high but they're abysmal when he gets them

56. What do they smell like? Why do they smell like this? (Is it the things they’re around or a perfume they wear?) he smells like cheap soap and cigarette smoke thanks to being in the last round often. sometimes he wears body sprays

57. How do they feel about sex? Are they a virgin? a lot of complicated ways. unfortunately he has had sex and will do it again

58. What is their most noticeable physical attribute? his height, he's VERY short

59. What does their resting face look like? Do they have RBF? he has just a little bit of RBF but mostly neutral

60. Describe the way they sleep. he steals all the blankets and is a sleep cuddler. he refuses to put his nine fucking thousand stuffed animals anywhere but ON his bed

Environment: 61. Which season is their favorite season? he says summer up until it's actually summer. he likes spring and fall

62. Have they ever been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others? yeah, he's had some complicated experiences with friends and family. he isn't always trusting but usually consciously decides to trust anyway because he generally thinks it's irrational not to without a reason. this often backfires on him

63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile? his friends or husband cracking jokes

64. Do they get cold easily? Do they get overheated easily? yes and yes, at least when he was alive. he had reynaud's syndrome when he was alive so he got dangerously cold in his hands and feet Very easily

65. What’s their immune system like? Do they get sick often? How do they react to getting sick? he's dead now so he doesn't get sick at all, but when he was alive he would generally try to plod through it until he couldn't anymore

66. Where do they live? Do they like it there? los angeles. sort of? big cities are exciting to him, but only to visit, so living in one 24/7 is probably driving him crazy (or crazier)

67. Is their bedroom messy? What about their bathroom? Kitchen? Living room? he tries to keep things a LITTLE tidy but generally every space he maintains on his own is some level of disastrously disorganized

68. How did their environment growing up affect their personality? his parents were broke, so in terms of environment, being anywhere much swankier than a lower middle class house makes his eyes fall out of his head

69. How did the people in their environment growing up affect their personality? he was raised to tough it out and show as little emotion as possible in regards to All Life which is the real reason he treats absolutely everything like a joke

70. How do they feel about animals? Do they have any pets? he loves animals. his husband has a ghoul cat that violently hates both of them

71. How are they with children? Do they have any? Do they want any? he's okay with them, but a little awkward. he would rather jump off a cliff than have any though

72.  Would they rather have stability or comfort? he'd rather have somewhere to turn to than live in a stable environment if the stability was along the lines of "everything is consistently uncomfortable"? i don't really get this question lol

73. Do they prefer the indoors or outdoors? indoors a little but he does still like the outdoors

74. What weather is their favorite? Do they like storms? very sunny weather (sad for a vampire). he does like snow and rain, but only if he can stay in

75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? he'd probably draw his husband lol

76. How organized are they? he has never been and will never be anything even remotely close to organized

77. What is their most prized possession? the teddy bear his mother passed down to him from when she was a kid

78. Who do they consider to be their best friend? erin :3

79. What is their economic situation? not great. he's very broke; his husband has a little more money than he does and helps support him, but the two of them have to watch their pennies for sure. lestat usually lives with his husband but stays at his own abysmal apartment/haven on occasion just for vampire paranoia safety reasons.

80. Are they a morning person or a night owl? night owl, which is lucky for him

Miscellaneous: 81. Are they bothered by the sight of blood? not blood on its own, no

82. What is their handwriting like? extremely messy

83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim? he can swim okay. he really likes it

84. Which deadly sin do they represent best? wrath probably

85. Do they believe in ghosts? he would have to be stupid not to at this point

86. How do they celebrate holidays? How do they celebrate birthdays? with food, usually, which makes his being a vampire kind of difficult. he likes to celebrate birthdays with presents and cake. if he and his husband weren't vampires he'd bake mär a cake every year

87. What is something they regret? probably the way he acted when he was in the camarilla, it wasn't particularly pretty because he was very, VERY upset about his embrace. he regrets having to have killed people to escape, and also regrets the weirdness of having to let go of most of his mortal friends

88. Do they have an accent? if you consider boring midwestern nothing voice an accent. 89. What is their D&D alignment?

chaotic good 90. Are they right or left handed? right handed

91. If they were a tweet, what tweet would they be? there are so many tweets in the world. probably the one about revving your motorcycle and lying dead on the pavement

92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif. why would you assume i have enough of these on hand to do that?

93. What’s the most iconic line of dialogue they’ve ever said? he says stupid shit all the time it's hard to know

[nervousgaylaughter]

how'd we end up on a road we never took (chapter 2)

read on ao3

this turning out to be a slowburn sorry gays but i had to do it

Kate grabs her phone and looks at the text she just received.

Unknown Number: Hey, this is Eva. My friend Patricia told me her plan.

Of course she has a name like Patricia, is all Kate thinks

Kate: yeah, it’s kinda crazy isn’t it

Eva: Kinda is being nice about it.

Eva: But it could work for both of us.

Kate: that’s true

Eva: Do you want to meet up tomorrow in person to talk about it? I feel a bit weird discussing all this over text.

Kate: sure, when and where

Eva: How about right after school at Boston’s Coffee Shop? I think our schools get out at the same time.

Kate: they do

Eva: Oh cool, how do you know?

Kate: my captain is obsessed with you

She realizes this sounds stalkerish to the stranger, and sends another text.

Kate: i meant to say your team my bad

Eva: Oh haha gotcha. See you tomorrow!

Kate: see ya

And she doesn’t know exactly how, but Kate falls asleep a lot more peacefully than she had anticipated with all the anxiety of today’s events.

For some reason, school started on a Wednesday and Riley decided it would be a good idea to have a preliminary practice on Thursday. Kate had complained asking why have practice when they haven’t even conducted tryouts yet, but Riley simply said ‘check your vibes Kate’ so the girl relented.

Today is Friday, the third day of school and the jamboree football game. It’s not a real game so the team isn’t expected to be prepared yet, they are required to go, but they’re allowed to sit in the stands and watch to get a feel for the crowd this year. Riley wants the team to eat lunch together so they can bond before the game, which is the last thing Kate wants to do.

The day goes by dreadfully long. She mopes through her first period math with Chess and Annleigh as Annleigh somehow answers every question. She hides under the bleachers during gym as she sees Cairo looking a little too hard at Riley in her gym uniform. Then she actually attempts to pay attention in English until lunch, when she goes to her usual spot and waits for Chess. The girl comes running up to Kate and grabs her arm.

“C’mon Kate.”

“Where are we going Chess?” Kate asks not at all amused with being taken from her spot.

“We’re eating lunch with the team today.” Chess doesn’t look Kate in the eyes.

“Why the fuck would we ever do that?”

“It’ll be good to do some team bonding,” Chess says, but Kate is unconvinced.

“You know you have nothing to prove to them right? I know you’re ok, you know you’re ok and that’s all that should matter.” Chess doesn’t answer as she just pulls Kate towards the table where the rest of the girls are waiting.

Kate wishes Chess wouldn’t care so much about what the team thinks of her. Chess made a few mistakes last year, but she’s clean now. Kate has spent many late nights on the phone with Chess, just talking about nothing, trying to make sure her best friend would fall asleep on the phone rather than by self-medication. But none of that is the team’s business. All they need to know is that Chess is better now.

“Welcome everyone, I’m glad you all showed up for our weekly Cheer Lunch,” Riley says as Kate and Chess sit down.

“Weekly?” Kate mouths to Chess to which Chess hits Kate on the leg.

“You look so pleased that your little girlfriend dragged you here Kate,” Cairo says, but Kate doesn’t fail to notice that Cairo places her hand mere centimeters away from Riley’s on the table.

“You know I’m actually taller than Kate-” Chess begins to say.

“Really that’s the part you’re focused on?” Kate asks her friend.

“Aww look at the lovers’ quarrel,” Cairo says sarcastically.

“Shut up Cai, and I’ll have you know that I actually do have a girlfriend. And no it’s not Chess.”

“Who is it?” Reese says as she approaches the table and sits down before anyone could tell her not to.

“She goes to West High. Her name is Eva Sanchez.”

“EVA SANCHEZ THE HIGHEST RANKED FLYER IN THE STATE?” Riley asks extremely excitedly as the rest of the girls flinch at the sudden exclamation. Cairo stares at the redhead as she shifts her jaw uncomfortably. Kate makes a mental note of Cairo’s obvious jealousy.

“The one and the same,” Chess responds for her as Kate’s mind begins to rush.

Oh my God I haven’t even spoken to Eva yet and I just committed us to this relationship.

Just as Riley is about to ask a million questions about Eva, Farrah asks, “So how was everyone’s summer?” Kate notices the girl isn’t drunk, which is good considering it’s the middle of the school day. The thought just makes Kate sad about the fact that she thought it in the first place. She’s not Farrah’s biggest fan after everything she has said to Chess, but she wishes the girl wasn’t already so messed up at fifteen.

Luckily Annleigh takes up most of lunch talking about church camp despite Farrah’s protests that she was asking everyone else but Annleigh since she had heard enough about it at home. Instead of listening to anecdotes about ‘Noah’s Art’ and ‘Capture the Bible’ (man these Christians really love their religious puns), Kate is entering a thought spiral about her situation.

Oh my god I’ve already crossed a line we haven’t even made yet, Kate thinks, and she’s completely panicking. Chess notices her friend in distress, and gives her a comforting squeeze on her knee. Luckily, the lunch bell rings and gives Kate her much needed escape to art class.

Thankfully, she has art with just Chess and none of the other girls, and the girls have a hushed conversation as the teacher is rambling on about shading.

“So you talked to Eva?” Chess asks.

“Uh… not yet.”

“So you just lied.”

“Technically it’s going to be lying whether Eva is on board or not.” Chess rolls her eyes as Kate continues, “But I’m meeting with Eva right after school before the game today.”

The teacher notices their conversation and says, “Girls. Do we have to do this every year?” Kate and Chess have had art together every year. Originally Chess took it her sophomore year to fulfill her art credit, but Kate convinced her to keep taking it with her, so Chess made the sacrifice of being in art class to be with her best friend.

“Sorry Miss,” Chess says. Chess was always far too kind about these things, but that’s why they had each other. Kate was there when a bit of anger was involved and Chess was there when politeness was needed. They balanced each other out.

The rest of the class Kate spends actually taking notes on various artistic styles until she goes to her next class. US History is a bore, especially considering she has both Annleigh and Clark in that class, so she practically fled from the classroom to get to Earth and Space Science. Kate didn’t necessarily enjoy science, but it was better than being with Christians R Us for an hour. She sat next to Farrah in this class, which neither girl was particularly happy about, but they sat in an agreed science, so Kate actually had some peace of mind.

Her last period was the most stressful. Not because of the class itself, AP Art History was bound to be incredibly hard, but she was so excited for it. Especially because the class takes a trip to France in the spring to see the art they study. She has this class with Reese who for once doesn’t try and engage Kate in conversation after she receives a very angry stare.

When the final bell rings, Kate realizes she has no way to get to the coffee shop. Shit I didn’t think this one through.

She shoots a text to Chess asking for a ride, and already starts making her way towards the girl’s car, but gets a very unexpected response.

chess ♟️: I have a meeting but Cairo says she can give you a ride.

Kate: Cairo???

But before Kate can get clarification she sees Cairo waiting in her car. Kate approaches the passenger window and knocks, startling Cairo who unlocks the door. Cairo is putting her mascara as Kate sits awkwardly in silence.

“I’m only giving your ass a ride because Boston’s is on my way to the movie theater,” Cairo says pulling out of the student parking lot.

“Gotcha. Thanks,” Kate says hoping it would be the end of the conversation. Unfortunately, about five minutes later Cairo begins to talk again.

“So Chess says you’re meeting Eva?”

“Yup.” Kate’s really trying to end this, but for some reason Cairo is unrelenting.

“I’m happy that you finally got over Chess and can move on-”

“I never had a crush on Chess, you do know that right?”

“Whatever you say,” Cairo says with a raise of her eyebrows. Kate has had enough of Cairo’s projection and decides she might as well confront the girl.

“Just cause I wasn’t in love with my best friend doesn’t mean anything about your situation though.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean Kate?” Cairo says with a quiver in her voice.

“I’m not oblivious Cairo.” They arrive at Boston’s but before Kate closes the door she says, “You’re clearly in love with Riley. Do us all a favor and tell her before it’s too late,” and she slams the door shut and makes her way into the coffee shop, not looking back at Cairo.

As Kate walks into Boston’s, she sees groups of teenagers studying or just hanging out, since Boston’s was halfway between Giles Corey High and West High it was considered neutral grounds for the rival schools. She looks around trying to find Eva when someone taps her shoulder.

“Uh hey are you Kate?”

“Yeah. You must be Eva.”

“The one and only. Wow Patricia's description of you was really accurate,” Eva says as they step in line together.

Kate is worried about what the girl said and asks, “What would that be?”

“Short. Dark hair. Choker. Slightly angry demeanor.” Why is my height a common theme today?

“That’s actually kind of fair,” Kate decides not to be a complete asshole to this girl she is supposed to pretend to be dating.

They get to the front of the line and order their drinks, a peach tea for Eva and a Pumpkin Spice Latte for Kate.

Kate brings out her credit card to pay for them as Eva says, “I can venmo you my half later-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kate interrupts.

"Really-"

"It's fine, you'll soon discover I'm quite chivalrous actually," Kate says which isn't a total lie. When Kate really cares about someone, she would go to the ends of the Earth for them.

“I didn’t know they sell Pumpkin Spice Lattes in August,” Eva says as they sit down.

“Oh they don’t. I forced it on the menu,” Kate responds.

“What…”

“I said what I said. PSL season should be every season.”

“But how did you make them do it?” Eva asks concerned for the poor minimum wage baristas.

“That’s a story for another time I think,” Kate says not wanting Eva to judge her too harshly quite yet. Eva chuckles at the girl’s mysterious answer and says, “So this whole pretend relationship thing.”

“Yeah. Having a girlfriend would kinda fix a few things in my life, but I cant get a real one because everyone at Giles sucks.” Eva nods along.

“Same situation here. My ex Amy keeps trying to get me back and is threatening any girl in school who tries to approach me.”

“Oh wow should I be worried?”

“I don’t think so, you seem like you can hold your own.” Kate almost thinks the girl is flirting but puts those thoughts aside. Nope nope nope too much right now it's pretend just chill Kate.

“So I guess we’re on the same page?” Kate asks.

“Yeah. And we only really have to date until Homecoming. After that everyone should be off our backs.” Homecoming is in October, Kate thinks, I can do that it’s only two months.

“We should probably set up some ground rules though,” Eva offers.

“True. Where should we begin?”

“Well first off are you ok with holding hands in public?” Kate thinks the innocence and genuine nature of Eva’s question is adorable.

“Yeah that’s cool with me. I think it’s safe to say no kissing though. That’d be kinda awkward.” And it’s not like Kate is going to tell this to Eva, but she really doesn’t want her first kiss to be fake. Somewhere deep down, Kate is a cheesy romantic, but no one has unlocked that side of her yet.

“Yeah that’d be weird,” Eva laughs it off, “So we draw the PDA line at holding hands. What’s our backstory how did we meet?”

“Backstory?” Kate asks amused, “We’re not fictional characters.”

“You know what I mean. People are gonna ask how we got together.”

“Well what if we met while you were delivering pizza.”

“Really?” Eva asks.

“It’s the most plausible explanation. Don’t you wear that jacket when you’re working too?” Kate asks pointing to the familiar jean jacket.

“Yeah, and?”

“So what if I saw your rainbow button and asked you out?” Kate says as if she would have ever acted on her ideas about the cute delivery girl.

“That’s actually pretty smart. What was our first date? The movies?”

“That’s basic as fuck Eva.”

“Well what do you propose?”

“We go rollerskating,” Kate says matter of factually.

“I don’t know how to rollerskate though.”

“Even better. I teach you and we hold hands and it’s cute as shit,” Kate says, thinking about her long-time first date idea with a smile.

“Fair enough. We also should probably know some basic stuff about each other.”

So the girls lose track of time as they get to know each other.

They go over their favorite colors (Kate’s is green and Eva’s is yellow), their allergies (Eva’s is peanuts and Kate’s is cats), and they share anecdotes about their lives. Kate learns that Eva started cheerleading by accident when she walked into cheer auditions thinking it was volleyball tryouts and was too embarrassed to leave. Eva learns Kate broke her arm in three different places when she was six and thought she could fly so she jumped off her roof. The two talk about life as if they’ve known each other for years.

It’s 5:45 when Kate looks at her phone and realizes she has to be at school in 15 minutes and once again doesn’t have a ride. I really need to start either thinking these things through or get my license.

“Eva I am so sorry but I have to be at school for our jamboree game at 6:00.”

“Oh no worries I didn’t realize we’ve been here so long.” Kate doesn’t want to ask her new friend slash fake girlfriend for a ride so she figures inviting her to the game would be easiest.

“Would you want to come? We’re not cheering just watching,” Kate says standing up.

“Oh sure, I’m always down to see the Tigers lose,” Eva teases, nudging Kate’s shoulder.

"Rude," Kate responds even though she knows it's true.

They continue chatting as they get into Eva’s car when Kate realizes she never changed into her cheer shirt.

“I forgot I have to put this on I hope you don’t mind,” Kate says unbuckling her seatbelt.

“At least wait until we get to a stoplight!” Eva begs. Kate concedes and changes at the light while Eva is clutching the steering wheel looking straight ahead. Once Kate is done, she feels her cheeks flush as she says, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s all good,” Eva says still not looking Kate in the eyes. They continue with a somewhat more awkward than before conversation until they finally arrive at Giles Corey High. As they get closer and closer to the cheerleader’s designated spot on the bleachers, Eva grabs Kate’s hand.

“Gotta sell the act,” she says with a wink, making Kate flustered.

As they get approach their seats, all the girls take notice of Eva. Kate whispers to her, “Oh just a heads up my captain is your biggest fangirl.”

“Is that what you meant over text-” Eva begins to ask when Riley yells, “EVA SANCHEZ IT REALLY IS YOU!” Kate looks over to Riley who is sitting next to Cairo. Cairo and Kate make eye contact, but Cairo quickly looks away from Kate’s implicative gaze.

Kate sits down next to Chess who leans in towards her friend, “So you guys agreed to this mess?”

“Yeah but just until October. Then we’re gonna stage a breakup or whatever.”

“If you say so. Just be careful ok?”

“It’s gonna be fine Chess,” Kate says and that’s when Farrah and Annleigh show up.

“Hey squad!” Annleigh says excitedly. Farrah says nothing and plops down next to her step-sister. Kate notices Riley incessantly interrogating Eva and realizes it’s going to be a long, long night.

[fardell24b]

A Question of Cindy

A Question of Cindy

 Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane were in the Pizza King, celebrating their graduation from Lawndale High earlier that day.

 “So, dazzling academic achievement, eh? What a sellout,” Jane said.

 “I know. And then I had the perfect opportunity to beat Ms. Li senseless with my trophy, and what do I do? Give a heart-warming speech,” Daria said, with her usual amount of thick sarcasm.

 “You're getting soft around the edges, Morgendorffer.”

 “Maybe, or maybe you've got glaucoma.”

 “To college! I can't wait! What do you think we'll find when we get there?”

 “Hmm. That the students are shockingly ignorant, the professors self-centered and corrupt, and the entire system geared solely to the pursuit of funding?” Daria said, inwardly hoping that it wouldn’t be like that.

  “Hmmm, yes. You know that thing I said about you getting soft?”

 “I take it back,” Jane said. She and Daria then clinked their cups. ‘To the future, may we stay friends no matter how old we get!’ Jane thought.

  A few moments later Daria looked to the door and saw one of the former students of Lawndale whom had graduated with her and Jane enter the Pizza place. “Hmm.”

 “What’s up?” Jane asked.

 “Do you know that girl?” Daria asked. She had seen her around the school, but couldn’t recall her name. (Indeed, Daria was sure that she knew less than 25% of the student body, and that there was a lot that went on in the school that she didn’t know about and she preferred it that way.) ‘Jane may know. I don’t want to ask Quinn.’

 “Not really, All that I can tell you is that her name is Cindy Brolsma and that she is into computers. Why?” Jane asked.

 “Jane, she graduated with us this afternoon,” Daria pointed out.

 “She did?” Jane exclaimed.

 “And the last that I can recall, she was in Quinn’s classes. She was in the Language Arts class that I taught during the Strike,” Daria said, referring to the Teachers Strike held two weeks after their previous summer vacation had ended.

 Jane thought for a moment “Oh yeah,” she said.

“I am going to talk to her,” Daria said. ‘It would likely be the only chance that I’ll get,’ she thought.

 “Are you sure?” Jane said, wondering what good that will do. She saw Cindy ordering a pizza at the counter.

 “Yes. I would like to know,” Daria said, as she got up.

 “Just don’t antagonise her, ok?” Jane said. ‘If so, I think she won’t tell her anything,’ she thought.

 ‘I will try not to antagonise her,’ Daria thought as she went towards the other bespectacled teen.

 Cindy Brolsma had just ordered a pizza when she turned around and noticed Daria Morgendorffer coming towards her. ‘This is definitely unusual,’ she thought.

 “Cindy?” Daria asked.

 “That’s me,” Cindy said, quite puzzled.

 “Would you like to sit with Jane and myself?” Daria asked.

 Cindy hesitated. Why was Daria Morgendorffer, one of the most anti-social teens in Lawndale, with the reputation to match, asking her to sit with her? “Um, sure,” she finally said.

 “Good,” Daria said, as she turned to go back to Jane.

 “I will be there when I get my Pizza,” Cindy said. ‘Hopefully that will quell the butterflies in my stomach.

 “Sure,” Daria said.

  “That was rather quick, and you didn’t get to the point!” Jane said, when Daria had sat back down.

 “Jane, if I did antagonise her, she wouldn’t have told me anything,” Daria said without hesitation.

 “That’s true,” Jane said as she took a bite.

 “I invited her to sit with us,” Daria said.

 “So both of us can ask her?” Jane asked. ‘Certainly better than Daria by herself asking her,’ she thought.

 “Yes.”

 Six minutes later, Cindy sat with Daria and Jane.

 “Ok, why did you ask me to sit with you and Jane, Daria?” Cindy asked, as she opened her pizza.

 “Direct, aren’t you?” Jane said.

 “When I need to be,” Cindy said.

 “Um, you graduated from Lawndale High this afternoon, right?” Daria asked.

 Cindy nodded, she knew that other students at Lawndale would be confused by her early graduation, but she hadn’t expected be asked about it students whom she did not associate with.

 “How did you pull that off?” Daria asked.

 “Why are you asking me this?” Cindy asked, wondering if Daria was going to chew her out like she did most others she crossed paths with.

 “Curiosity,” Daria said.

 “We are going to college and we don’t know everything about Lawndale?” Jane asked with a mischievous tone.

 “Actually, I am beginning to wonder if I had overlooked other like minded people whom attended Lawndale High. Anyone who can graduate High School early is a good person in my book,” Daria said.

 ‘At least she is asking politely. She is also not chewing me out.’ She decided to tell her and Jane about how she had managed to graduate from Lawndale High early anyway. ‘At least someone besides Kristen knows,’ she thought.

 “Well, I attended advanced classes via concurrent enrolment Post Secondary Enrolment Option programs at Lawndale Community College,” Cindy said tentatively. ‘Best to tell them about that first,’ she thought.

 “Ms Li mustn’t have been pleased about that!” Jane said.

 Cindy chuckled, she knew that the principal tended to keep tight tabs on the school’s budget. “She still isn’t,” she said.

 “That wouldn’t do it. You would still have to do the full four years,” Daria said, the curiosity showing (only slightly) in her voice.

 “I have been doing advanced placement classes since seventh grade. I also did the International Baccalaureate,” Cindy said.

 “Interesting,” Daria said, feeling a little jealous. Despite her straight A record she had never been able to get her mom to allow her to take the advanced classes. ‘My lack of socialisation may have had something to do with that,’ she thought.

 “Is that all?” Cindy asked, wondering what else the so called outcast duo would want to ask her.

 “You are going to College, right?” Jane asked.

 “Of course. I wouldn’t do all that and not go to college. This Fall, goodbye Lawndale, hello Boston!” Cindy said.

 “Boston?” Daria asked wondering. ‘It has to be a coincidence; there are many tertiary institutions in Boston,’ she thought.

 “Yeah. I am going to Raft,” Cindy said.

 “Raft?” Daria asked, almost in shock.

 “What is wrong with that? Raft has a great reputation!” Cindy retorted.

 “I didn’t mean it like that!” Daria said.

 “What then?” Cindy asked.

 “She is also going to Raft,” Jane said.

 “You are?” Cindy asked.

 Daria nodded.

 Cindy relaxed; “At least I’ll know somebody,” she said.

 “I won’t be the only one,” Daria said.

 “You won’t?” Cindy asked.

 “Yeah. Jane will also be in Boston. But not until next Spring,” Daria said. ‘If she knows I am going, she has to know that Jane is too,’ she thought.

 “Daria!” Jane exclaimed.

 “She would find out anyway,” Daria said.

 “What?” Cindy asked, wondering why Jane would be touchy, about going to Boston in Spring.

 “I applied to BFAC late. I wouldn’t be going to college, if it weren’t for Daria encouraging me,” Jane admitted.

 “Boston Fine Arts College? I have heard that you are a good artist, but wow. BFAC has a really good reputation in the art world,” Cindy said.

 Jane looked at Cindy “How would you know that?” she asked. ‘I haven’t heard that she is interested in art,’

 Cindy grew quiet. “My mom went there after school. She now works in the Lawndale Art Museum. So what are you doing at Raft, Daria?”

 “Double Major English and History, I will be trying to be a writer and a historian. And yourself?” Daria asked. She had no idea of what Cindy may be interested in, besides what Jane had said earlier.

 “Computer Science. In your face, MIT!

 “Interesting,” Daria said.

 “Do you have anything against MIT?” Jane asked.

 “There are more males than females, although I heard that is improving. Besides, Raft is almost as good as MIT as regards Computer Science,” Cindy said.

 “Cool, I guess,” Jane said.

 “It definitely is,” Cindy said.

 The trio continued to talk for the next half hour, before they left the Pizza King to head home.

[gaysparklepires]

17. Carlisle

Read on AO3

I led him back down the hallway to Carlisle’s office, pausing outside the door in order to give Carlisle an opportunity to invite us in.

“Come in,” Carlisle’s voice called, a tinge of amusement barely detectable in his tone.

I opened the door to Carlisle’s office. I watched Beau’s eyes drift to the high-vaulted ceilings, the tall windows, and the dark paneled walls. His eyes widened as he took in the sheer number of books Carlisle kept in the space.

Carlisle sat in his usual place behind the mammoth mahogany desk. He placed a bookmark in his book and set it down on the desk, his eyes rising to meet Beau’s who was watching him with a strange mixture of surprise and confusion.

“What can I do for you?” Carlisle asked as he rose from his leather chair.

“I wanted to show Beau some of our history,” I said. “Well, your history, actually.”

“We didn’t mean to disturb you,” Beau apologized.

So polite. “Not at all. Where are you going to start?” Carlisle smiled.

“The Waggoner,” I replied, gently placing my hand on his warm shoulder and turning him around back towards the entrance to the room. I could hear his heart flutter slightly at my touch and my mind reeled with questions. What did I do? I tried not to think about it, lest I become frustrated.

Beau’s eyes scanned the wall, taking in the nearly overflowing number of framed pictures. His eyes scanned past the brightly colored paintings and lingered on the paintings with more monochromatic tones, which made sense; he liked earth tones. His eyebrows furrowed slightly, like he didn’t understand something about the paintings, but I couldn’t begin to guess his thought process.

I led him toward the far-left side, stopping him in front a small square painting. His eyes studied the varying tones of sepia, the details of the miniature city of steeply slanted roofs and thin spires. I knew the painting well, having spent more time than I cared to admit studying the towers and the little bridge that crossed the wide river.

“London in the sixteen-fifties,” I said, answering Beau’s unspoken question.

“The London of my youth,” Carlisle added, from just behind us. Beau flinched in surprise; I realized he wouldn’t have heard Carlisle approach. I took his hand and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“Will you tell the story?” I asked. Beau twisted slightly to look at Carlisle.

Carlisle met Beau’s glance and smiled. “I would,” he replied. “But I’m actually running a bit late. The hospital called this morning—Dr. Snow is taking a sick day. Besides, you know the stories as well as I do,” he added, grinning at me now. And I’m sure Beau would rather hear them from you.

I raised my eyebrow slightly at Carlisle, letting a tiny smirk dance on the corner of my lips. I couldn’t be disappointed, more time alone with Beau was all I could ask for in this world.

Carlisle gave Beau another warm smile and left the room.

Beau’s eyes returned to the small painting and lingered for a long moment.

“What happened then?” he finally asked, staring up at me, catching me watching him. “When he realized what had happened to him?”

I reluctantly pulled my eyes away from his beautiful face and back to the paintings on the wall. This time my eyes landed on the large landscape slightly to the right of the first painting. Beau’s eyes followed mine and in my peripheral vision I could see him study the dull fall colors of the empty, shadowed meadow in the painting.

“When he knew what he had become,” I said quietly, “he rebelled against it. He tried to destroy himself. But that’s not easily done.”

“How?” Beau asked suddenly, like he hadn’t meant to say it aloud. The shock was evident in his voice.

“He jumped from great heights,” I told him, impassively. “He tried to drown himself in the ocean… but he was young to the new life, and very strong. It is amazing that he was able to resist…” I paused, the word caught in my throat slightly, “feeding…” I quickly glanced down to check for a reaction, but Beau didn’t seem bothered, so I continued, “while he was still so new. The instinct is more powerful then, it takes over everything. But he was so repelled by himself that he had the strength to try and kill himself with starvation.”

“Is that possible?” Beau’s voice was faint.

“No, there are very few ways we can be killed.”

He opened his mouth to ask a question about what I had said, but I continued before he could. I didn’t want to answer such a dark question.

“So he grew very hungry, and eventually weak. He strayed as far as he could from the human populace, recognizing that his willpower was weakening, too. For months he wandered by night, seeking the loneliest places, loathing himself.

“One night, a herd of deer passed his hiding place. He was so wild with thirst that he attacked without a thought. His strength returned, and he realized there was an alternative to being the vile monster he feared. Had he not eaten venison in his former life? Over the next months, his new philosophy was born. He could exist without being a demon. He found himself again.

“He began to make better use of his time. He’d always been intelligent, eager to learn. Now he had unlimited time before him. He studied by night, planned by day. He swam to France and—”

“He swam to France?” Beau interrupted, an incredulous look on his face.

“People swim the Channel all the time, Beau,” I reminded him, amused by his expression.

“Okay, but people don’t swim to France.”

“Swimming is easy for us—”

“What isn’t easy for you?” He griped.

I waited this time before speaking, amused by his put out expression.

He glanced up at me, huffed quietly, and locked his eyes back on the painting. “I won’t interrupt again, I promise.”

I chuckled at his petulant tone and finished. “Because, technically, we don’t need to breath.”

“You—” He whirled around to face me.

“No, no, you promised.” I laughed, lightly pressing my finger to his warm lips. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“You can’t spring something like that on me and then expect me not to say anything,” he mumbled against my finger.

The feeling of his warm breath against my cold skin was thrilling in an odd way, but not nearly enough. I wanted to feel the warmth of his lips, of his breath against my own lips. I collected my thoughts enough to lift my hand and move it to rest against his neck.

“You don’t have to breathe?” He demanded.

“No, it’s not necessary. Just a habit.” I shrugged. It had been so long now that even I hadn’t thought much about it.

“How long can you go… without breathing?”

“Indefinitely, I suppose; I don’t know. It gets a bit uncomfortable—being without a sense of smell.”

“A bit uncomfortable,” he echoed the words in disbelief.

His expression stopped me then. His eyes were wide with confusion and his expression betrayed his shock. I could feel my own expression grow somber as I studied his face. I dropped my hand to my side, feeling myself turned to stone as studied his face. The silence continued to drag on, I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

“What is it?” Beau finally whispered, putting his hand on my cheek.

His touch was as electric as ever, and I couldn’t stay so serious when he touched me so gently, I sighed. “I keep waiting for it to happen.”

“For what to happen?”

“I know that at some point, something I tell you or something you see is going to be too much. And then you’ll run away from me, screaming as you go.” I managed half a smile, but it was just a show, I was sure he could see how it didn’t meet my eyes. “I won’t stop you. I want you to run, I want you to be safe. And yet, I want to be with you. The two desires are impossible to reconcile…”

I trailed off, watching his face, examining every minute change. I waited for his response.

“I’m not running anywhere,” he promised.

“We’ll see,” I smiled sadly back at him.

He frowned at me. “So, go on—Carlisle was swimming to France.”

I paused, trying to reclaim my momentum in the story while simultaneously trying to comprehend how Beau could remain so calm after being confronted with everything he had seen and learned so far. Trying to pick up the story again, my eyes reflexively flickered to another painting on the wall—the most ostentatious of them all. Beau’s gaze followed mine to the colorful, ornately framed painting, his expression became confused again as he tried to make sense of the bright figures and swirling colors.

“Carlisle swam to France, and continued on through Europe, to the universities there. By night he studied music, science, medicine—and found his calling, his penance, in that, in saving human lives.” I couldn’t conceal my own awed reverence for Carlisle in my expression. “I can’t adequately describe the struggle; it took Carlisle two centuries of torturous efforts to perfect his self-control. Now he is all but immune to the scent of human blood, and he is able to do the work he loves without agony. He finds a great deal of peace there, at the hospital…” I wondered if I could ever gain that level of self-control, if ever I could be around Beau and keep myself so contained and controlled that his blood didn’t claw at my basest most animalistic desires. I realized Beau was watching me expectantly and continued my story. I tapped the gilded frame of the huge painting in front of us.

“He was studying in Italy when he discovered the others there. They were much more civilized and educated than the wraiths of the London Sewers.”

I gestured to the top part of the portrait where the quartet of unnaturally beautiful figures stood on a balcony looking down in silent judgement of the rabble below. Beau leaned forward and examined the faces carefully, after a moment he let out a startled laugh with his eyes fixed on the golden-haired man.

“Solimena was greatly inspired by the Carlisle’s friends. He often painted them as gods,” I chuckled. “Aro, Marcus, Caius,” I said, indicating the other three figures standing with Carlisle. “Nighttime patrons of the arts.”

“What happened then?” Beau wondered aloud, his fingertip hovering just a centimeter from the two dark-haired and pale blond figures I had named.

“They’re still there.” I shrugged. “As they have been for who knows how many millennia. Carlisle stayed with them only for a short time, just a few decades. He greatly admired their civility, their refinement, but they persisted in trying to cure his aversion to ‘his natural food source,’ as they called it. They tried to persuade him, and he tried to persuade them, to no avail. At that point, Carlisle decided to try the New World. He dreamed of finding others like himself. He was very lonely, you see.

“He didn’t find anyone for a long time. But, as monsters became the stuff of fairy tales, he found he could interact with unsuspecting humans as if he were one of them. He began practicing medicine, but the companionship he craved evaded him; he couldn’t risk familiarity.

“When the influenza epidemic hit, he was working nights in a hospital in Chicago. He’d been turning over an idea in his mind for several years, and he had almost decided to act—since he couldn’t find a companion, he would create one. He wasn’t absolutely sure how his own transformation had occurred, so he was hesitant. And he was loath to steal anyone’s life the way his had been stolen. It was in that frame of mind that he found me. There was no hope for me; I was left in a ward with the dying. He had nursed my parents, and knew I was alone. He decided to try…”

I was barely speaking above a whisper now as I trailed off. My eyes drifted, unseeingly, to the west facing windows. My mind was full of memories, not only my own hazy recollections but also Carlisle’s crystal-clear memories that I had seen in his mind. His had become the ones I usually looked back on now, as my actual memories were not nearly as solid.

Beau was quiet at my side. I turned back to him and his patient, adoring expression brought a smile to my face.

“And so we’ve come full circle,” I finished.

“Have you always stayed with Carlisle, then?” He wondered.

“Almost always.” I put my hand on his waist and pulled him alongside me as I walked through the door. His eyes lingered back on the wall of paintings, a curious expression in his face. I hoped he wouldn’t question any further about the tenure of my stay with Carlisle.

“Almost?” He asked, because of course he would.

I sighed, reluctant to answer, but the more I kept from him the more curious he would be, and I knew better than most how persistent he could be. “Well, I had a typical bout of rebellious adolescence—about ten years after I was… born… created, whatever you want to call it. I wasn’t sold on his life of abstinence, and I resented him for curbing my appetite. So I went off on my own for a time.”

“Really?” His voice was full of intrigue and curiosity, rather than the fear or repulsion I had expected. Never the reaction I expected.

I continued to lead him up the next flight of stairs, trying to understand his backwards reactions, he only seemed vaguely aware of his surroundings, like he was deep in thought himself.

“That doesn’t repulse you?” I finally questioned.

“No.” He said simply.

“Why not?”

“I guess… it sounds reasonable.” He shrugged, casually.

I let out an unbecoming bark of a laugh at his relaxed tone. We had reached the top of the stairs now, and I led him down the paneled hallway. Since there was no point in being effusive with him, I decided to continue with my story.

“From the time of my new birth,” I murmured, “I had the advantage of knowing what everyone around me was thinking, both human and non-human alike. That’s why it took me ten years to defy Carlisle—I could read his perfect sincerity, understand exactly why he lived the way he did.

“It took me only a few years to return to Carlisle and recommit to his vision. I thought I would be exempt from the… depression… that accompanies a conscience. Because I knew the thoughts of my prey, I could pass over the innocent and pursue only the evil. If I followed a murderer down a dark alley where he stalked a young girl—if I saved her, then surely I wasn’t so terrible.”

Beau shivered, and I wondered what he was thinking about. No doubt he was imagining me as a monster stalking the streets in the dead of night, vicious and feral hunting down poor defenseless humans. I tried not to think about it and continued, hoping the ending of my story would redeem me in his eyes.

“But as time went on, I began to see the monster in my eyes. I couldn’t escape the debt of so much human life taken, no matter how justified. And I went back to Carlisle and Esme. They welcomed me back like the prodigal. It was more than I deserved.”

We’d come to a stop in from of the last door in the hall—my door.

“My room,” I informed him, trying to sound casual as I opened the door and led him through.

He looked around my bedroom, his eyes immediately shot to the full wall window facing south. His eyes danced along the winding Sol Duc River, across to the untouched forest to the Olympic Mountain range. He seemed surprised by them for some reason I couldn’t understand.

He pulled his eyes away from the strangely surprising mountains to study the western wall of my room. He took in the shelves of CDs, the sound system, the leather sofa, the thick golden carpet, and the wall curtains.

“Good acoustics?” He offered.

I chuckled and nodded.

I picked up the remote and turned the stereo on, filling the room with soft jazz music. He smiled slightly, then wandered over to my collection of music. He stared at the different CDs for a long while, turning his head to the left then the right. His eyebrows furrowed the longer he looked, I wondered what he could possibly be thinking. I stood and watched him, letting myself revel in the moment. I let the relief wash over me, the sense of near-normalcy that I now felt as he stood here in my room, in my family’s home, like I was a normal boyfriend—like we were a normal couple. There was more than relief, there was a feeling—an emotion I was largely unaccustomed to.

“How do you have these organized?” He asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Umm, by year, and then by personal preference within that frame,” I answered absently, still deep in thought.

He turned, and something in my expression made him tilt his head to the side and raise an eyebrow.

“What?”

“I was prepared to feel… relieved. Having you know about everything, not needing to keep secrets from you. But I didn’t expect to feel more than that. I like it. It makes me…” I racked my brain for the word and it came to me in a blissful rush, “happy.” I shrugged, smiling slightly.

“I’m glad,” he said, smiling back. I sensed relief in his expression.

This should have made me happier, and yet… I couldn’t help but feel that it would be fleeting, that it would all come crashing down without warning.

He noted the change in my own expression. I realized my smile had faded and my forehead was creased.

“You’re still waiting for the running and the screaming, aren’t you?” He sighed.

Correct, as usual. I couldn’t stop the smile from touching my lips and nodded.

“I’m not scared of you.” He said simply, assuredly.

This stopped me short, my eyebrows raised in disbelief. He wasn’t scared of me? Impossible. He had to be bluffing! No… He wasn’t bluffing. He truly was not scared of me. This made me smile, wide and wickedly, as an impulse flashed through me.

“You really shouldn’t have said that,” I chuckled. If he wasn’t scared of me, then I would show him what he should be afraid of.

I growled, low and throaty; my lips curled back over my venomous teeth. I shifted into a half-crouch, like I did when I hunted. I kept my body tense and ready.

“Um… Edward?”

He wouldn’t see me leap at him—I was far too quick for his eyes to register the movement. I caught him, mid-leap, in the gentlest grip I could manage and flipped him over towards the leather sofa. I set him down on his back so gently I wondered if he even felt it. He stared up at me with bewildered eyes as I crouched over him. My knees were tight against the sides of his hips, locking him in place, and my hands were planted on either side of his head so that he couldn’t move. I bared my teeth just inches from his face.

“Wow,” he breathed. It wasn’t fear, per se, it was… excitement? I felt a surge of excitement pulse through me.

“You were saying?” I growled playfully.

“That you are a very, very terrifying monster,” he said, chuckling.

“Much better.”

“Um.” He struggled against me, vainly. “Can I get up now?”

“Mmm…” I smiled, my impulsive side winning out over my better judgement. “I don’t think I’m done with you yet.”

I gently ran my lips along his jaw, then down his perfect neck. His heart thudded against his chest as I softly kissed his neck.

“Edward!” He laughed, futilely struggling against my grip. His heartbeat was erratic and wild as shivers ran down his body.

I could only laugh in triumph as I kissed his throat.

“Can we come in?” Alice’s voice sounded from the hall.

Damn! I groaned. How did I not hear her and Jasper coming before now? Well, I was quite preoccupied, I supposed. I quickly rearranged us on the sofa, placing him next to me and draping his legs over mine just as Alice and Jasper appeared in the doorway. Beau’s cheeks were an exquisitely tempting shade of scarlet, which tempered my annoyance with amusement and not just a little desire.

“Go ahead.” I sighed.

Alice was doing a good job of keeping her thoughts jumbled enough that I couldn’t be sure exactly what she was thinking, she glided to the center of the room and folded herself onto the floor. I wondered what she was keeping from me, but the tenor of her thoughts seemed excited, so it wasn’t bad news. Jasper, however, could not keep his thoughts contained.

Have you no shame? Jasper’s thoughts matched his shocked expression. Having him that close… and, boy, the mood is… tense… in here. He stared at my face and I wondered how the atmosphere must feel to him.

“It sounded like you were having Beau for lunch,” Alice cooed, “and we came to see if you would share.”

Beau stiffened for a moment and I grinned widely, both at Alice’s teasing and Beau’s reaction. He noticed my reaction and forced himself to relax.

“Sorry, I’m not in the mood to share,” I answered, pulling Beau even closer to me—recklessly, dangerously close. “In fact, I wasn’t even done myself.”

Alice shrugged, “Fair enough.”

“Actually,” Jasper said, surprising me by smiling himself as he walked into the room, “Alice says there’s going to be a real storm tonight, and Emmett wants to play ball. Are you game?”

Beau’s expression was one of blank confusion, like he didn’t understand anything Jasper had just said.

I couldn’t hide my excitement, but I hesitated for a moment.

Alice understood immediately. “Of course you should bring Beau,” she chirped. Jasper shot a slightly wary glance at her, which she ignored. Whatever Jasper was concerned about, he somehow managed to keep it from his thoughts.

“Do you want to go?” I asked Beau, not bothering to hide my excitement.

“Sure.” He smiled up at me. “Um, where are we going?”

“We have to wait for thunder to play ball—you’ll see why,” I promised him.

“Will I need an umbrella?”

We all laughed at his fantastically pragmatic question.

“Will he?” Jasper asked Alice.

“No.” She very sure, and I watched the vision with her. “The storm will hit over town. It should be dry enough in the clearing.”

“Good, then.” Jasper was warming up, and the enthusiasm in his voice radiated out of him into the room. I imagined even Beau was beginning to feel it now.

“Let’s go see if Carlisle will come.” Alice lept up from her seated position to the door in one quick, fluid motion.

“Like you don’t know,” Jasper teased, as they swiftly departed. Enjoy yourself, Edward. Jasper thought as he quietly closed the door.

“What will we be playing?” Beau asked.

“You will be watching,” I answered. “We will be playing baseball.”

His expression was skeptical. “Vampires play baseball?”

“It’s the American pastime,” I said with mock solemnity.

He snickered at me, and I grinned in response.

“Now,” I smiled, feeling reckless and irresponsible again, “where were we?”

He giggled in a poor show of protest as we tumbled around the couch while I kissed his neck and jaw.

The worst was over now, and we had everything to look forward to.

[orbemnews]

The Covid-19 Plasma Boom Is Over. What Did We Learn From It? Scott Cohen was on a ventilator struggling for his life with Covid-19 last April when his brothers pleaded with Plainview Hospital on Long Island to infuse him with the blood plasma of a recovered patient. The experimental treatment was hard to get but was gaining attention at a time when doctors had little else. After an online petition drew 18,000 signatures, the hospital gave Mr. Cohen, a retired Nassau County medic, an infusion of the pale yellow stuff that some called “liquid gold.” In those terrifying early months of the pandemic, the idea that antibody-rich plasma could save lives took on a life of its own before there was evidence that it worked. The Trump administration, buoyed by proponents at elite medical institutions, seized on plasma as a good-news story at a time when there weren’t many others. It awarded more than $800 million to entities involved in its collection and administration, and put Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s face on billboards promoting the treatment. A coalition of companies and nonprofit groups, including the Mayo Clinic, Red Cross and Microsoft, mobilized to urge donations from people who had recovered from Covid-19, enlisting celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, the actor known as the Rock. Volunteers, some dressed in superhero capes, showed up to blood banks in droves. Mr. Cohen, who later recovered, was one of them. He went on to donate his own plasma 11 times. But by the end of the year, good evidence for convalescent plasma had not materialized, prompting many prestigious medical centers to quietly abandon it. By February, with cases and hospitalizations dropping, demand dipped below what blood banks had stockpiled. In March, the New York Blood Center called Mr. Cohen to cancel his 12th appointment. It didn’t need any more plasma. A year ago, when Americans were dying of Covid at an alarming rate, the federal government made a big bet on plasma. No one knew if the treatment would work, but it seemed biologically plausible and safe, and there wasn’t much else to try. All told, more than 722,000 units of plasma were distributed to hospitals thanks to the federal program, which ends this month. The government’s bet did not result in a blockbuster treatment for Covid-19, or even a decent one. But it did give the country a real-time education in the pitfalls of testing a medical treatment in the middle of an emergency. Medical science is messy and slow. And when a treatment fails, which is often, it can be difficult for its strongest proponents to let it go. Because the government gave plasma to so many patients outside of a controlled clinical trial, it took a long time to measure its effectiveness. Eventually, studies did emerge to suggest that under the right conditions, plasma might help. But enough evidence has now accumulated to show that the country’s broad, costly plasma campaign had little effect, especially in people whose disease was advanced enough to land them in the hospital. In interviews, three federal health officials — Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Peter Marks, a top F.D.A. regulator; and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, a clinical director at the National Institutes of Health — acknowledged that the evidence for plasma was limited. “The data are just not that strong, and it makes it makes it hard, I think, to be enthusiastic about seeing it continue to be used,” Dr. Lane said. The N.I.H. recently halted an outpatient trial of plasma because of a lack of benefit. Plasma promotions Doctors have used the antibodies of recovered patients as treatments for more than a century, for diseases including diphtheria, the 1918 flu and Ebola. So when patients began falling ill with the new coronavirus last year, doctors around the world turned to the old standby. In the United States, two hospitals — Mount Sinai in New York City and Houston Methodist in Texas — administered the first plasma units to Covid-19 patients within hours of each other on March 28. Dr. Nicole M. Bouvier, an infectious-disease doctor who helped set up Mount Sinai’s plasma program, said the hospital had tried the experimental treatment because blood transfusions carry a relatively low risk of harm. With a new virus spreading quickly, and no approved treatments, “nature is a much better manufacturer than we are,” she said. As Mount Sinai prepared to infuse patients with plasma, Diana Berrent, a photographer, was recovering from Covid-19 at her home in Port Washington, N.Y. Friends began sending her Mount Sinai’s call for donors. “I had no idea what plasma was — I haven’t taken a science class since high school,” Ms. Berrent recalled. But as she researched its history in previous disease outbreaks, she became fixated on how she could help. She formed a Facebook group of Covid-19 survivors that grew to more than 160,000 members and eventually became a health advocacy organization, Survivor Corps. She livestreamed her own donation sessions to the Facebook group, which in turn prompted more donations. “People were flying places to go donate plasma to each other,” she said. “It was really a beautiful thing to see.” Around the same time, Chaim Lebovits, a shoe wholesaler from Monsey, N.Y., in hard-hit Rockland County, was spreading the word about plasma within his Orthodox Jewish community. Mr. Lebovits called several rabbis he knew, and before long, thousands of Orthodox Jewish people were getting tested for coronavirus antibodies and showing up to donate. Coordinating it all was exhausting. “April,” Mr. Lebovits recalled with a laugh, “was like 20 decades.” Two developments that month further accelerated plasma’s use. With the help of $66 million in federal funding, the F.D.A. tapped the Mayo Clinic to run an expanded access program for hospitals across the country. And the government agreed to cover the administrative costs of collecting plasma, signing deals with the American Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers. The news releases announcing those deals got none of the flashy media attention that the billion-dollar contracts for Covid-19 vaccines did when they arrived later in the summer. And the government did not disclose how much it would be investing. That investment turned out to be significant. According to contract records, the U.S. government has paid $647 million to the American Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers since last April. “The convalescent plasma program was intended to meet an urgent need for a potential therapy early in the pandemic,” a health department spokeswoman said in a statement. “When these contracts began, treatments weren’t available for hospitalized Covid-19 patients.” Updated  April 17, 2021, 10:17 a.m. ET As spring turned to summer, the Trump administration seized on plasma — as it had with the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine — as a promising solution. In July, the administration announced an $8 million advertising campaign “imploring Americans to donate their plasma and help save lives.” The blitz included promotional radio spots and billboards featuring Dr. Fauci and Dr. Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner. A coalition to organize the collection of plasma was beginning to take shape, connecting researchers, federal officials, activists like Ms. Berrent and Mr. Lebovits, and major corporations like Microsoft and Anthem on regular calls that have continued to this day. Nonprofit blood banks and for-profit plasma collection companies also joined the collaboration, named the Fight Is In Us. The group also included the Mitre Corporation, a little-known nonprofit organization that had received a $37 million government grant to promote plasma donation around the country. The participants sometimes had conflicting interests. While the blood banks were collecting plasma to be immediately infused in hospitalized patients, the for-profit companies needed plasma donations to develop their own blood-based treatment for Covid-19. Donations at those companies’ own centers had also dropped off after national lockdowns. “They don’t all exactly get along,” Peter Lee, the corporate vice president of research and incubations at Microsoft, said at a virtual scientific forum in March organized by Scripps Research. Microsoft was recruited to develop a locator tool, embedded on the group’s website, for potential donors. But the company took on a broader role “as a neutral intermediary,” Dr. Lee said. The company also provided access to its advertising agency, which created the look and feel for the Fight Is In Us campaign, which included video testimonials from celebrities. Lack of evidence In August, the F.D.A. authorized plasma for emergency use under pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who had chastised federal scientists for moving too slowly. At a news conference, Dr. Hahn, the agency’s commissioner, substantially exaggerated the data, although he later corrected his remarks following criticism from the scientific community. In a recent interview, he said that Mr. Trump’s involvement in the plasma authorization had made the topic polarizing. “Any discussion one could have about the science and medicine behind it didn’t happen, because it became a political issue as opposed to a medical and scientific one,” Dr. Hahn said. The authorization did away with the Mayo Clinic system and opened access to even more hospitals. As Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths skyrocketed in the fall and winter, use of plasma did, too, according to national usage data provided by the Blood Centers of America. By January of this year, when the United States was averaging more than 130,000 hospitalizations a day, hospitals were administering 25,000 units of plasma per week. Many community hospitals serving lower-income patients, with few other options and plasma readily available, embraced the treatment. At the Integris Health system in Oklahoma, giving patients two units of plasma became standard practice between November and January. Dr. David Chansolme, the system’s medical director of infection prevention, acknowledged that studies of plasma had showed it was “more miss than hit,” but he said his hospitals last year lacked the resources of bigger institutions, including access to the antiviral drug remdesivir. Doctors with a flood of patients — many of them Hispanic and from rural communities — were desperate to treat them with anything they could that was safe, Dr. Chansolme said. By the fall, accumulating evidence was showing that plasma was not the miracle that some early boosters had believed it to be. In September, the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended that plasma not be used in hospitalized patients outside of a clinical trial. (On Wednesday, the society restricted its advice further, saying plasma should not be used at all in hospitalized patients.) In January, a highly anticipated trial in Britain was halted early because there was not strong evidence of a benefit in hospitalized patients. In February, the F.D.A. narrowed the authorization for plasma so that it applied only to people who were early in the course of their disease or who couldn’t make their own antibodies. Dr. Marks, the F.D.A. regulator, said that in retrospect, scientists had been too slow to adapt to those recommendations. They had known from previous disease outbreaks that plasma treatment is likely to work best when given early, and when it contained high levels of antibodies, he said. “Somehow we didn’t really take that as seriously as perhaps we should have,” he said. “If there was a lesson in this, it’s that history actually can teach you something.” Today, several medical centers have largely stopped giving plasma to patients. At Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, researchers found that many hospitalized patients were already producing their own antibodies, so plasma treatments would be superfluous. The Cleveland Clinic no longer routinely administers plasma because of a “lack of convincing evidence of efficacy,” according to Dr. Simon Mucha, a critical care physician. And earlier this year, Mount Sinai stopped giving plasma to patients outside of a clinical trial. Dr. Bouvier said that she had tracked the scientific literature and that there had been a “sort of piling on” of studies that showed no benefit. “That’s what science is — it’s a process of abandoning your old hypotheses in favor of a better hypothesis,” she said. Many initially promising drugs fail in clinical trials. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” Plasma’s future Some scientists are calling on the F.D.A. to rescind plasma’s emergency authorization. Dr. Luciana Borio, the acting chief scientist at the agency under President Barack Obama, said that disregarding the usual scientific standards in an emergency — what she called “pandemic exceptionalism” — had drained valuable time and attention from discovering other treatments. “Pandemic exceptionalism is something we learned from prior emergencies that leads to serious unintended consequences,” she said, referring to the ways countries leaned on inadequate studies during the Ebola outbreak. With plasma, she said, “the agency forgot lessons from past emergencies.” While scant evidence shows that plasma will help curb the pandemic, a dedicated clutch of researchers at prominent medical institutions continue to focus on the narrow circumstances in which it might work. Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an immunologist at Johns Hopkins University, said many of the trials had not succeeded because they tested plasma on very sick patients. “If they’re treated early, the results of the trials are all consistent,” he said. A clinical trial in Argentina found that giving plasma early to older people reduced the progression of Covid-19. And an analysis of the Mayo Clinic program found that patients who were given plasma with a high concentration of antibodies fared better than those who did not receive the treatment. Still, in March, the N.I.H. halted a trial of plasma in people who were not yet severely ill with Covid-19 because the agency said it was unlikely to help. With most of the medical community acknowledging plasma’s limited benefit, even the Fight Is In Us has begun to shift its focus. For months, a “clinical research” page about convalescent plasma was dominated by favorable studies and news releases, omitting major articles concluding that plasma showed little benefit. Now, the website has been redesigned to more broadly promote not only plasma, but also testing, vaccines and other treatments like monoclonal antibodies, which are synthesized in a lab and thought to be a more potent version of plasma. Its clinical research page also includes more negative studies about plasma. Nevertheless, the Fight Is In Us is still running Facebook ads, paid for by the federal government, telling Covid-19 survivors that “There’s a hero inside you” and “Keep up the fight.” The ads urge them to donate their plasma, even though most blood banks have stopped collecting it. Two of plasma’s early boosters, Mr. Lebovits and Ms. Berrent, have also turned their attention to monoclonal antibodies. As he had done with plasma last spring, Mr. Lebovits helped increase acceptance of monoclonals in the Orthodox Jewish community, setting up an informational hotline, running ads in Orthodox newspapers, and creating rapid testing sites that doubled as infusion centers. Coordinating with federal officials, Mr. Lebovits has since shared his strategies with leaders in the Hispanic community in El Paso and San Diego. And Ms. Berrent has been working with a division of the insurer UnitedHealth to match the right patients — people with underlying health conditions or who are over 65 — to that treatment. “I’m a believer in plasma for a lot of substantive reasons, but if word came back tomorrow that jelly beans worked better, we’d be promoting jelly beans,” she said. “We are here to save lives.”’ Source link Orbem News #boom #Covid19 #learn #plasma

[sumigakure]

we’re getting the band (back) together

To: @modernart2012

From: @arrowsbane​

Title: we’re getting the band (back) together

Rating: T

Wordcount: 1486

Prompt: Pacific Rim AU. Preference for MadaTobi, but I’m open to any pairing, romantic or otherwise. Doesn’t have to follow the movie, can follow the comics.

Notes: I went very AU with this, but right now Idek bc I swapped prompts halfway through, and this is what my brain came up with.

Summary: “We’re getting the band back together!” Jiraiya crows exuberantly. Tsunade, of course, is just there to knock some heads together; and Orochimaru… Orochimaru hates them both. He’d rather being science-ing in his lab right about now.

After the shinobi villages formed, when the clans finally came together in order to stop the wars, the worst thing anybody really had to worry about was politics and conflicting missions…

And then… everything changed.

When the Zetsu first began attacking, it was the Samurai who came up with the concept for the Jaegar Project. It was a great idea, two people piloting a giant, fifty foot mechanical robot to combat the threat… until, of course, the Shinobi nations took one look at the machine and started to laugh.

The Project wasn’t scrapped – it couldn’t be scrapped, not with the panicked civilians’ screaming en masse at the politicians. Instead, it was made the public face of international defence.

Instead, the Parabatai Project was designed – which in turn spawned the Cerebus Program as the years passed; implants inserted directly into the spinal column and interfacing with the CNS and brainstem, wirelessly connected to partnered hubs.

The implants enabled the user to link-up with others, and essentially become one mind simultaneously piloting and co-ordinating multiple bodies. If used by an ordinary swordsman, it would be lethal… used by Ninja… well, that was just inspired.

And so began the evolution of the ninja villages – Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Madara paved the way, demonstrating the deadly efficiency of two compatible genii able to share a hive mind-set. The land of Fire was set ablaze in their attempt to wipe out the Zetsu, but even their combined might was not enough. 

Genin teams were put together for balance, but ninja were assessed again as Chunin, and often reassigned to different units in order to test flexibility and search out the best ‘fit’. Partners were usually set around the age of sixteen, once puberty had evened out – chakra helping to stabilise the mind and body ahead of civilian standards.

When Sarutobi’s Genin team were slotted together, nobody had really expected much of them – well, they had expected them to become brilliant ninja… separately… in their own right… but nobody had foreseen the titans that they would be in the field.

The implants stung at first, they always did – Jiraiya bitched, Orochimaru scowled… and Tsunade… Tsunade was smug, because the idiots had ignored the opportunity to learn the healing techniques she’d used on herself within five minutes of leaving the Cerebus Centre.

Sarutobi shook his head and sighed, directing them to training ground twenty-three, and settling in to watch the no-doubt hilarious show that would be the three of them (re)learning to navigate while sharing headspace with minds that weren’t their own.

“Ouch!”

“Out of the way!”

“Ow. Ow OW OW TSUNADE!”

“Mooorrrooon.”

Sarutobi found himself dropping the rice ball and hastily intervening as Orochimaru’s words began to slur together in the telling manner that threatened the destruction of the whole training ground… or the village being swamped in snakes. Again.

The Sannin weathered so many storms, so many encounters with the Zetsu over the years before the cracks begin to show.

Time isn’t kind, nor is life. Some grow close, some grow apart… and constant expectations of high success rates, expectations of perfection, of setting the bar, of succeeding in an impossible war…

Tsunade lost her brother and fiancée, Orochimaru’s humanity slipped further and further from his grip with every passing year, and Jiraiya buried years of pain and disappointment beneath a wide grin and creased-closed eyes.

And then the cracks met in the middle, and the team shattered at the seams.

The Sanin were no more.

Time ticks on, and the Zetsu keep coming.

New teams step up to the plate, nations rise and fall in the leaderboards for ‘have killed the most useless monsters’… and eventually the Hokage throws his hands in the air, sighs, and sends his ANBU out to drag Jiraya away from the Hot Springs and into his office – by the ear if necessary.

“Enough,” He tells the wayward brat – fifty years old or not, he’s a brat – “Enough. This has gone on for long enough.”

Jiraiya, of course, scowls.

“I’m not the one who left,” He grumbles, crossing his arms and ducking his chin, the picture of an angry pre-teen. Sarutobi sighs and rubs the crease between his brows.

“No,” he replies, “you are not; but that doesn’t mean you can’t go after them.”

Jiraya, tellingly, doesn’t answer. He sits there in sullen silence for a long while, and then slinks out of the office. Sarutobi has a sinking feeling. This will not end well.

Tsunade is drinking in a bar when he finds her, flushed pink from the alcohol, and halfway to falling asleep on a bill she won’t ever pay.

“No,” she says before he can even open his mouth, before he’s even in her line of sight – like she knows what he’s there for – and she does, because she’s still got the implants, and he would never give his up.

“But–”

“No.”

Jiraiya sighs, and flops down into a seat next to her, raising an arm to the bartender who nods and sets down a bottle of Sake and a cup in front of him.

“Kampai,” he mutters in a subdued tone.

Fuck. Now he remembers why he never chased after them before now.

The next morning dawns bright and clear – the sun is shining, the birds are singing… the local castle is exploding in a cloud of dust and rubble.

The fuck?

Jiraiya bolts upright, and groans, supressing the urge to drop back down into bed as the force of his hangover – and Tsunade’s, shit, how did he forget about that perk of the bond? – hits him smack in the cap of the skull, and his eyes feel like they’ve been burnt out of his head.

Goddammit, what was that?

He squints out against the morning glare, wrenching the window open and pushing off of the sill with practised ease, zoning in on the source of the noise.

Boom usually equals bad in his books.

And he’s right. He’s not the only one there though – Tsunade and her apprentice (Shizue? Torune? Shizune?) follows them, carrying a pig of all things.

Not only that, but looming out of the dust and snarling with frustration is–

“Orochimaru?” Jiraiya yelps. He hadn’t sensed the snake nin nearby. How had he not sensed the man when he’s lit up like a fucking chakra beacon?

“What did you do?” Tsunade screeches angrily, staring at was once a piece of local cultural history and is now a mass of stone and dirt.

“It wasn’t me,” Their wayward teammate snarls back at her; and as one, they turn to see a writing white mass melting into nothingness. But of course, where there’s one Zetsu, there’s dozens more.

“We’ll talk about this later,” She orders, ignoring Jiraiya’s whine of pain, and smashing a chakra-coated fist through the head of a Zetsu that had been trying to sneak up on her.

“Sure, “Orochimaru snipes backwards, “Sometime after the two of you have drunk your weight in sake again I suppose?”

“Please,” Tsunade snorts, kicking another Zetsu into a group, and the lot of them go down like bowling pins. “I’d need a lot more than that to handle your crap.”

Jiraiya tunes them out, focusing on using their connection – something he hasn’t done in over ten years – to handle the situation, although the back of his brain feels the familiar to-and-fro of death threats and general snarking.

He’s missed this.

When it’s all over and done with, and they’re standing in the wreckage of the battlefield, Jiraiya lets his shoulders slump, and turns to his old friends with a grin on his face – a grin he’s not worn in a long time.

“That was fun,” Tsunade admits as they make their way down to the town. She’s going to need sake to get through the rest of they day.

“Yeah, it was.” Jiraiya agrees happily, and Orochimaru snorts. “Oh don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it.”

“I didn’t hate it…” Orochimaru acquiesces, stepping over a large chunk of stone and mortar.

“Aww, I love you too.” Jiraiya latches onto his teammate like a limpet on a rock.

“Get your hand off of me, Moron.” Orochimaru hisses, flipping his hair over his shoulder and trying to squirm out of Jiraiya’s grip.

“You’re both idiots.” Tsunade grumbles, shaking out her clothes.

“But we’re your idiots.” Jiraiya tells her cheerfully.

“You’re certainly something,” She grumbles, and then freezes as a thought passes through Jiraiya’s head.

“No,” She says.

“No.” Orochimaru agrees with her.

It’s too late though, they both know he’s not going to let them go again.

“Don’t say it,” Tsunade groans, rubbing her aching temples and Orochimaru groans.

“We’re getting the band back together!” Jiraiya crows exuberantly. Tsunade, of course, is just there to knock some heads together; and Orochimaru… Orochimaru hates them both. He’d rather being science-ing in his lab right about now.

If you enjoyed this piece, why not take a look at other pieces written by the same author on AO3.

[gilliansanderson]

If Ever There Is Tomorrow; Chapter 1

An AU in which Mulder and Scully meet three times over the course of their lives; told in a series of vignettes.

Tagging @today-in-fic and fulfilling my @fictober promise. I also wanted to dedicate this one to all the lovely, talented people who helped me out during the @fic-files write-in, because without their support and feedback I probably would not have had the courage to put this out there.

1. As Time Goes By

Spring, 1993

The end of the 20th century is only the beginning. Change hits the nineties at a breakneck speed; Hair is getting bigger, technology is getting smaller, colors are getting brighter while the climate begins to suffer, but in the midst of a new era, some old skeletons are about to be unearthed. The third time they meet is the least bloody, yet opens more wounds. It comes, like the times before, suddenly and without warning.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Mulder had been given plenty of warning when Skinner had informed him he was being assigned a partner; A scientist who was to, no doubt, disprove his work and report back to the kind of men he was fighting. To keep him in line and keep him from going overboard. This hadn’t come as a surprise, he always knew the closer he got to the truth, the more curveballs they would throw his way. What made him almost fall out of his chair was the name, Dana Scully.

A name he couldn’t claim had never crossed his mind.

Dana Scully haunted him like an intrusive thought or the vague memory of a strange fever dream. She reminded him of a time he would much rather forget, yet the feeling lingered; the possibility that maybe one day, their paths might cross again. When he’d heard that she’d enlisted he found himself needlessly frequenting Quantico in the hope and the dread of catching a flash of ginger hair. Her thesis was printed and dog-eared the moment it was published; because challenging one of the greatest minds the world has ever known was something so quintessentially Dana Scully, and he was ever the masochist.

His hopes were not high; he didn’t expect her to accept this assignment, and he certainly didn’t suppose she would darken his basement door that very same day, but suddenly, here she is, smiling down on him from the high road.

“Agent Mulder,” she says quietly, with an air of disbelief, “I’ve been assigned to work with you,”

They shake hands like strangers, his fingers burn at her touch; the sensation lingers even after her hand falls away. She had always run as warm as her complexion, His summer girl had become fall. Her hair is darker, neatly tamed. She teeters precariously on heels that give her precious extra inches, that demand he looks her in the eye. Her ill-fitting tweed suit hangs awkwardly on her slender frame; the whole ensemble reminds him of a child playing make-believe. Hidden is her rebellious heart under sensible attire and a polite smile; the heart he knows he broke, and one he refuses to break again.

So he puts down his slides and puts up his guard.

“Isn’t it nice to be so highly regarded? So who’d you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?”

For a moment she’s stunned, then the next she recovers, “Actually, I’m looking forward to working with you,” she tells him.

He responds with a bitter smile, “Oh really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me.”

A fire sparks behind her eyes, she looks as if she was about to retort before he cuts her off. “I’m surprised you didn’t object to your placement, Scully, what with our tempestuous history,”

She hesitates, he hates that she hesitates, hates that he makes her hesitate. “I can’t say I wasn’t caught off guard,” she admits, “Though I knew it was a possibility we would run into each other when I started working at the Bureau…”

“Yes, this is interesting happenstance isn’t it, Doctor?” She tenses, Mulder stands and brushes past her in order to miss her patented Scully glare.

“If you’re suggesting that you played any part in any decision concerning my career…”

“I’m not suggesting anything, I just always supposed you’d be headed towards a Nobel prize by now, yet here you are wasting your talents in the basement with me,”

Scully blinks and tilts her pointed chin, “You think I’m wasting my talents here, Mulder?”

“It’s just that in most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seem to apply,” he shrugs and hits the lights. In the unearthly glow of his projector, Scully looks like a ghost.

He shows her the dead kids, barely older than they had been, once upon a time. He tells her his theories, she rebukes them with a smirk, slowly the ice begins to thaw and a familiar feeling begins to take root.

Then she leaves, and the basement feels darker and emptier than it ever had before. So Scully was back in his life and maybe, plausibly, this time she would stay. Mulder locks the office door behind him that evening and whistles the whole way home.

Fall, 1978

September in Connecticut, 1978 is record-breaking. The air as thick and hot as soup, her stiff collared shirt clings to her skin and dampens at the base of her neck. She wipes away the sweat beading on her forehead with the end of her ugly striped green tie and ignores the disapproving look her mother gives her.

Dana had always marvelled at how the air was always different in every new place they landed, she secretly ranked them from the icy unforgiving winds of the Scottish moors to the serene and exotic air of Japan. Greenwich so far was not doing too well on this list, however, it looked like she was going to have to get used to it. She had long since gotten used to the routine of neatly packing up her life in matching suitcases and burying a lunchbox in the backyard.

Melissa left a trail of broken hearts behind them like push pins in a map. Her sister had always been better at making friends, she claimed it had something to do with her aura, Dana wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, only that hers was probably broken. Usually, by the time she had started warming to people, her father would sit the four of them on the couch and tell them it was time to start saying goodbyes, so Dana eventually stopped trying to find people to say goodbye to.

She had her friends, they were called Mom, Ahab, Missy and Charlie. Sometimes Bill, when he wasn’t being a pain in the A Double-S. They were all she really needed. When she was very young, she even had an imaginary friend called Lucy, who took the form of a red squirrel. Lucy would curl up behind her hair and whispered secrets in her ear. Dana liked the fact that nobody else could see her, that she was hers and hers alone.

Sometimes she would pen a letter to the boy who had forgotten her, only to burn it in the bathtub with her mother’s lighter.

But still, her Mom always tried. She heard her arguing sometimes with her father that it wasn’t good for them, that kids needed stability. It looked like this year she had finally won the war and a house was bought, not rented.

She shifts uncomfortably as her bare thighs stick to the Principals rigid leather seats. The Principal in question was a tall British woman with large teeth, a sensible mousey bob and a collection of motivational animal posters. Dana catches the eye of a mournful kitten hanging from a curtain, encouraging her to Hang In There! and somehow feels even less optimistic.

“Now Diana, a little birdy told me that you’re especially talented at Science is that right, dear?” She smiles in a condescending way that makes Scully bristle. Bill snickers to her right, Missy kicks him in the shin on her behalf.

“It’s Dana, Ms Paterson,” Her mother corrects her patiently.

“Oh, my apologies, Dana.”

Dana represses the urge to roll her eyes, instead, begins to fiddle with the brand new chain around her neck. Naturally she was the last of the three to be enrolled, but unfortunately for her, also the one the school was most interested in.

“As I was saying, it seems you are just the model student, and if you don’t mind the extra work, we might be able to sign you up to the tutoring scheme, we have a nice young man who is in need of a little extra help in physics,”

Maggie nods encouragingly at her, clearly ecstatic at the prospect of her troubled young daughter making a friend. Dana tries feebly to muster her mothers’ enthusiasm,

“Sure, Miss, sounds… neat,”

“Wonderful,” she croons, “I hope you don’t mind, but I already took the pleasure of asking Fox to come by the office, so you could get to know each other,”

Dana’s hand stilled at the base of her throat, she felt her mother stiffen beside her, and her siblings’ squabbles fall silent. No. It couldn’t be that uncommon a name. “Fox?” she falters.

“Yes, quite an odd name isn’t it? He’s truly lovely boy, very very bright, unfortunately, he had to be held back a year…” Ms Paterson yammers on, but Dana had long since stopped hearing her words, as a minute later he appeared.

He was taller and lanky, the skin on his cheeks textured and he was in dire need of a haircut, but he was undoubtedly the same wide-eyed boy who had been her first real friend. And with wide eyes, he stares at her from the doorway, as if he couldn’t believe them himself.

“Scully?”

Framed by a halo of light from the hall, the image of him becomes blurred by the tears which spring to her eyes. Her chair falls backwards with a heavy thud as shoots to her feet. She mutters an apology to the baffled headmistress before she hurries from the room.

“Scully,” Mulder pleads, catching her hand as she darts past and clutches it tight. Electricity floods her veins. She looks into those familiar hazel eyes and pauses only a moment before she pulls her hand away and runs.

Summer, 1969

The summer of ‘69 is worthy of its song. Rock and Roll is at its peak, a man walks on the moon, and somewhere in New England, a lonely little boy meets a lonely little girl.

With a startled wail and a resounding thump, she falls out of a tree into his yard and into his life.

The day until that moment had been dull and unremarkable. Having escaped captivity and found refuge in his favourite spot, under a tall oak tree overlooking the tranquil sea; Fox William Mulder, seven and three quarters, jumps with a start and stares at the heap of limbs and hand me downs, as it groans then starts to giggle.

“Are you okay?” he asks, as his initial shock subsides.

“Yeah, yeah,” it says, “I’m fine,”

Dana Katherine Scully, six and a half, sits up to brush off the worst of the debris but lets out a sharp gasp as a lightning bolt of pain shoots through her wrist. However, being the tough cookie she was having grown up playing rough with William Scully Jr, the sprain was not enough to make her cry.

“You don’t look okay, you’re bleeding,” Mulder observes. She touches a hand to her mouth which sure enough, comes away red. Between them on the crisply trimmed grass lies a pearly white tooth. The ruffled girl picks it up and studies it curiously, tonguing the fresh gap in her gums, then tucks it into the pocket of her overalls.

“I guess you’re gonna see the tooth fairy,” he lisps, gesturing to his own missing front teeth. Her freckles dance as she wrinkles her nose.

“The tooth fairy isn’t real,” she replies, spitting scarlet on the ground and wiping her mouth on her arm, staining her skin like war paint.

“Is too, and so is Santa Claus,”

He offers a hand to help her to her feet, which she takes with a bloody, gap-toothed grin. This girl was brand new, he knew every fresh face in this small seaside town, and not one of them had ever smiled at him like that before. She’s all skinned elbows and scabby knees. She looks like she was spat out by the sun, with a fiery rat’s nest of auburn hair and a mischievous gleam in her bright blue eyes. He feels like Isaac Newton, hit on the head with the discovery of the century.

“You’re not from around here are you?” he asks.

She shakes her head, “No, we just moved here this week. My Dad’s gone to sea, I was trying to see his boat from up there when I slipped,” She replies, gesturing to the web of twisted branches above their heads.

“He’s a pirate?” he jokes; she quirks a little brow.

“No. He’s a Captain,”

“Captain Hook?”

Fox Mulder is still at the age where girls are kind of gross, but the sincerity with which this pretty tomboy laughs makes his ears turn red regardless. She was like a breath of fresh air after spending the whole day trapped inside a stuffy room, which incidentally he had.

“Fox,” he blurts at her, suddenly losing his cool.

“What did you call me?” she replies hotly, her un-injured hand flying self-consciously to her mussed red hair.

“No! my name is – “

“Fox!” They jump at the booming disembodied voice calling from the house a few meters away, “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Crap,” he mutters. Scully can’t help but flinch at the use of the word which would have cost her her dessert. “I’m supposed to be grounded, I think I’d better go,”

She tries not to be disappointed, but finds herself reluctant to say goodbye to this curious boy with a strange sense of humor, who believes in myths and fairy tales; but he makes no move to leave, equally unwilling to say goodbye to the girl who dresses like a boy and smells like the sea, who climbs trees and doesn’t cry when she falls. They eye each other hesitantly until finally, she breaks the silence.

“Your name is Fox?” she asks.

He makes a face, “Yeah, but I hate it. I like my last name better. It’s Mulder,”

“Mulder,” she tries it on her tongue and decides she likes the taste. She straightens her back and offers her hand like she’s seen adults do a thousand times before. “Ok. Nice to meet you, Mulder, my name’s Dana, but I guess you can call me Scully,”

“Scully,” he beams and takes her tiny, dirty hand in his. They shake in childish ignorance to how their stars had just aligned.